


(K)ruel Intentions

by Reyanth



Category: K (Anime)
Genre: M/M, Non-con/pedophilia references in the distant past, Non-sexual Violence, Polyamory, S&M Undertones
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-06
Updated: 2017-12-24
Packaged: 2018-08-19 20:14:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 48,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8223439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reyanth/pseuds/Reyanth
Summary: Turn-coat Fushimi and ruthless Munakata are trying to find their way to each other, so how do they keep winding up in the arms of others? Can they patch up the wounds of the past in time to be reunited?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Just FYI, truly explicit content will probably be limited to yaoi pairings. Because habits.

Braced with flat palms against a cold, rough brick wall and ducking his head to avoid a concussion as the force of his lover’s thrusts violently rocked his whole body, Fushimi shut down all emotion. He didn’t need sentiment. Sentiment would just get him killed. Even if that wasn’t the case, he didn’t need it anyway. He didn’t need to think about the king he’d left behind—the kings; this was the second time, after all…

Sentiment was deadly. Feeling was another matter.

Immersing himself in sensation, Fushimi pushed off the wall and threw his arm back, rotating his shoulder in a wild swing that caught around the back of Mishakuji’s neck and pinned him perfectly flush against that lithe, cat-like body. He gasped as the swordsman’s hips thrust right up into him and sparks lit before his eyes.

It was always like this—rough and tumble, full of his dirty mutterings and Mishakuji’s aesthetic bullshit. Mostly, it just hurt, but from the moment their bodies came into sync and those sparks were ignited, it was a wild ride to the peak of ecstasy.

Once, an intentional clawing that started just above his pubes and raked up his abdomen made something in Fushimi snap and he’d gone berserk, flipped, and wrestled Mishakuji to the mattress, then buried his hands under that proud chin, intent on crushing the delicate little throat that facilitated the spiteful, feux-cream voice he hated so much. All that had snapped him out of it was that some analytical quirk that just wouldn’t shut off in him had interpreted the popping of Mishakuji’s eyes and arching of his body as an orgasmic reaction rather than the death throes he’d been aiming for. Disgusted, he’d recoiled, but not before the pervert came with a shuddering jolt of his hips.

Since then, things had gotten minutely less vicious. Only minutely.

At first, Fushimi had thought it strange of the narcissist who was so obsessed with beauty to have such a violent nature between the sheets—or on top of tables, up against walls… basically anywhere but on the floor. He’d come to terms with it one day, however, when Mishakuji had inadvertently commented on his own nature in trying to slight Fushimi during an informal gathering of the J-Rankers.

“Beauty on the outside, ugliness within, a traitorous exterior.”

The ridiculous attempt at poetry had finally satisfied Fushimi as he realized that Mishakuji’s desperation for physical perfection was a compensation for the unattractive state of his soul. Not that he cared much beyond solving a mystery of flawed human character.

Mishakuji was indeed a very attractive man and he knew what to do with the impeccable body he’d sculpted for himself. Though Fushimi had yet to decide whether this affair was simply a method of distracting himself from the hurt that festered in his heart, or a useful trump card for gathering information or solidifying his ties to the “ally” least likely to murder him in his sleep, getting it up wasn’t a problem and he got his share of physical relief in the deal.

As he panted and strained, Mishakuji’s hands on his hips both holding him upright and rooting him to the ground, Fushimi stifled self-loathing and smothered the vision of another man that rose indignantly from his subconscious. He thought deliberately of dark fuscia tresses and silken black strands. He thought of glossy, peach-colored lips and eyelashes to die for.

He thought of the cold reflection off of distinguished rectangular glasses giving way to a translucence that revealed eyes sparkling with laughter or the occasional glowing warmth. He thought of strong arms built to protect and a strange blend of “motherly” and “manliness” that somehow came together without contradiction because they both hailed from a place of caring.

He climaxed, muscles stiffening and body trembling, before wilting in Mishakuji’s arms with pitifully wet lashes and one treacherous tear rolling down his cheek.

_“Fushimi-kun.”_

_Timing was everything. If they didn’t manage to herd the targets with absolute precision-_

_“Fushimi-kun.”_

_…with absolute precision, then they would lose the chance to keep control over their enemies’ movements. Every trap, gate, door, and clash of manpower had to be wrung dry of its potential in order to-_

_“Yata Misaki? What in the world is he doing here?”_

_“What!?” Even before completing the glance he snapped up and around the room, Fushimi knew he’d been played. “Tch. I’m busy here. Go bug Awashima.”_

_“The lieutenant has a mission of her own to carry out—as do I. It just happens that my mission at present involves a discussion with you,” Munakata announced, sounding disgustingly smug for being able to justify engaging in his favorite pastime—being a_ royal _pain in the ass._

_Thinking of the vital work he had very little time to complete, Fushimi thrust his chin into his palm in a show of displeasure and refused to look at the captain. “Why not summon me to your office? Why come all the way here to bother me when I’m in the middle of engineering the success—and survival—of three clans?”_

_“Because your work is very important to me, Fushimi-kun,” the captain said in a sincere tone that drew his clansman’s reluctant gaze. “I wouldn’t dream of wasting the precious time it would take for you to detach yourself from your task, trudge to my office like a pupil to a scolding, and then still have to make it all the way back here to get on with what needs to be done.”_

_Noting the captain’s unspoken temptation to add a plea that he honor the favor by respecting Munakata’s precious time in return and thus argue no further, Fushimi couldn’t resist getting ahead of the game. “So get on with it, then,” he pointed out._

_“The back-up plan.”_

_“What about it?”_

_“Use your own judgment but waste no time. If the slates fall into JUNGLE’s hands, every second will count.”_

_“Got it. Anything else?”_

_“If it comes to it, Fushimi… Do what you must, but… stay safe. And stay mine.”_

_-I will._

_-I don’t belong to anyone, least of all to you._

_-I won’t forget my duty._

_-Just who do you think you’re talking to?_

_Of all the options that almost rolled off the tip of Fushimi’s tongue, none seemed an appropriate response to whatever it was that Munakata held back, unspoken, and tried to convey through what few words he did employ. Afraid of making the wrong call, Fushimi turned his attention back to his work and began tapping away. If he failed to make the correct calculations within the limited amount of time that remained, his king would be in that much more danger._

_“Why don’t you just focus on beating this royal Green pain in the neck and protecting the pride of Sceptre 4?” he suggested, putting an end to this pointless waste of time and breath._

Soiled inside and out—in more than just the literal sense—and bleeding from a variety of sources, Fushimi heaved in breath after breath, his belly battering the ground as he strove to regain control over himself. Even as he lay there, an insensate mess, he sensed Mishakuji’s departure and mourned it not a bit.

Tears threatened, but not for the defilement. In the wake of overwhelming pleasure, emotions flooded in to fill the hollow he had so deliberately carved out within himself for the nth time. With emotion came memory.

There was no deep understanding between him and Munakata Reisi; no silent acknowledgement that the honed and sharpened accusations they flung about like knives were just some elaborate ruse. Those words had hurt—far more than the physical abuse Fushimi now submitted himself to.

Try as he might, Fushimi couldn’t believe his own logical justifications that it was all just a lie. The captain didn’t believe he was a traitor, because this was his own damn order. The captain didn’t really see him that way, because Fushimi had proven himself. But had he? He truly had betrayed HOMRA, however one painted it. He had turned his reckless Red coat inside out for the cooling obedience of the Blue. This new coat of free-roaming Green could be just as real if he let himself forget for a moment that he was under orders. Something about the color green felt as right in him as it did wrong—it was a color of jealousy, betrayal, slimy slippery things, and indecision (by merit of its exclusion from the array of decisive primary colors). It was just right for someone who clung to the Blue mantle as if he truly belonged while Red threads snaked around his limbs and tripped him up. If he almost believed it, why shouldn’t the captain?

Shooting down Munakata and taking the deflected vocal bullet himself hadn’t felt like an act. It had torn him open.

Had his own words hurt the captain with as much destructive force? Had his accusations and observations hit home like he’d intended? Because he had. He hated Munakata for making him do this, so he hadn’t held back a single thread of conviction. He’d gone for the throat again. He always went for the throat.

It wasn’t just resentment over the necessity for this mole operation, either. It was worse than that. The captain had indeed ordered him to infiltrate JUNGLE should things go south but that was the extent of the plan. Munakata’s pathetic doubts and weak show of depression had been real and that made Fushimi furious. The captain hadn’t even realized right away what he was doing. Over and over again, Fushimi had wondered at exactly what point the captain had cottoned on. Before he accused Fushimi of taking smug pleasure in the failure of the alliance? Was that his way of setting the stage? Or had he snapped in earnest right up until Fushimi had put “resignation” on the table? He was sure that at least the final stage of the fight had been part of the setup but that didn’t necessarily mean the reasoning was false.

Fushimi’s nails scraped the ground as his hand convulsed into a fist and he whispered the name of the man he still believed was his true king. Tears burned in his eyes as he tried to deny them and his throat closed on the painful wave of emotion.

When this was all over, would there be anything worth salvaging? Would either of them even be alive to find out?

Damn Munakata for forcing him to carry this awful, soul-crushing burden. Damn him for denying Fushimi a place at his king’s side when he was most needed… when he most needed to be there.

Nobody else could play this role like Fushimi could. Nobody else could succeed at it, full stop. But that didn’t justify the sacrifice of whole chunks of his soul. He very much hoped he didn’t make it out of this alive, and failing that, he prayed that Munakata was destroyed if he did. Otherwise, he might just kill his king himself for putting him through this.

*

“I would have thought you would be done with me.”

Hirasaka occupied only the arm of an otherwise empty couch. They were in an apartment Fushimi had purchased from the clan using extra points he’d gathered since attaining J-Rank. The space was close enough to the base that her presence there had probably been noted. No matter.

“Make yourself comfortable if you want,” Fushimi suggested, but he didn’t bother to insist. If the woman wished to pointlessly bruise her ass sitting up there it wasn’t his problem.

“I won’t be staying long,” she claimed. “We shouldn’t be seen together like this.”

“Since Nagare is already aware of our collaboration and apparently doesn’t give a damn, we can be seen strolling arm in arm through the park for all it matters,” Fushimi informed her. “That’s exactly why I can still make use of you. I need a messenger I can meet with without arousing suspicion.”

Hirasaka let out an incredulous huff. “You’re a fool if you think Nagare trusts you in the least.”

“It doesn’t matter if he trusts me or not, as long as I remain a J-Rank with access to all the perks and privileges,” Fushimi countered. “The important thing is that I can’t get caught communicating with anyone outside JUNGLE, which means I need someone else from the clan to do it for me—preferably someone skilled in stealth missions and uninterested in taking a personal stake in this war.”

Hirasaka shrugged. “You know my rates. For this, I’ll need an extra 10% for the risk of approaching anyone from Sceptre 4 under threat of being recaptured as an escaped prisoner… Make that 20%. That captain is a tyrant.”

Genuinely amused by the assessment, Fushimi considered the negotiations concluded, grinned, and flopped onto the couch, swinging his legs up and stretching out across its length. “That’s a very real possibility, so let’s say 25%.”

“You’re supposed to barter the price lower, not higher,” she commented, both eyebrows raised and a mild strain of surprise in her voice.

“I’m a realist and the captain _is_ a tyrant. Besides, it’s not like your payment is coming out of my salary.”

“You want me to report directly to him, then.”

“Do not engage with other members of Sceptre 4 under any circumstances.”

“Understood. And the nature of this communication?”

Curling his legs up onto one half of the couch, Fushimi tossed aside a throw pillow and dug up the big brown cushion padding the frame. Strong velcro resisted separation with pleasing tenacity.

Flipping the cushion, Fushimi ripped off a large patch of seemingly pointless velcro from the underside, freeing a small USB which he held up for Hirasaka to view. When she held out her palm, he handed it over without qualms.

“Don’t view the contents," he warned.

“Obviously,” she responded, unabashedly tucking the device into a pocket made for just such a small object sewn brilliantly under her cleavage where it would never see the light of day. As long as no-one tried to feel her up, they’d never know it was there.

Fushimi righted the cushion, waiting to see if she had any questions about what it contained, but she just scowled as he extended his legs out once more.

“Risky,” she observed, viewing the couch with distaste. “Don’t think I don’t know what you and that wench, Mishakuji Yukari, have gotten up to on that couch.”

“Jealous?”

“If you’re implying I am even the least bit tempted to pursue pleasure with you in addition to business, you forget that I am a professional. Even if you are hot without those lame glasses, I-”

“Ohhh? For the record, I was referring to ‘that wench,’ Mishakuji Yukari, but this is a pleasant surprise. Just so you know, those clunky glasses of yours are actually pretty erotic. You should definitely stick with them.”

The bullying aspect of the teasing hit home first and her eyes narrowed in a precursor to a self-righteous rant. Then the flirting sunk in and she sucked in a little breath of surprise.

Like the respectable pro she prided herself as being, Hirasaka tucked that advance away to be contemplated later. Her posture straightened with dignity and she stepped firmly back onto familiar ground.

“I’ll be your go-between, but only-”

“But only for the money, not because you have the hots for me,” Fushimi drawled, letting his limbs elongate just a little further as he gave his muscles a comfortable stretch for her apparent viewing pleasure. “I’d expect nothing less from a professional.”

Grimacing, she slipped off the arm of the couch and turned a look of anger and disappointment upon Fushimi. “You don’t have to go out of your way to make me sound like a whore.”

“I did nothing of the sort,” he said honestly. “That’s paranoia subconsciously twisting my words around your own guilty desire. For what it’s worth, I don’t really care. If you feel like boxing up that professional pride,” he said, letting the implication dangle for a moment as he hooked one knee up to draw attention to his crotch, “I’ll gladly give you a tumble,” he finished, waiting for her eyes to return to his before he spoke again. “Just don’t expect anything beyond that.”

He meant it. It wasn’t so much that Fushimi was bisexual—he didn’t see the point in labeling sexuality like that in the first place—he was just attracted to who he was attracted to. Seeing as how it really wasn’t a common thing for him to feel that way and in actual fact, he liked Hirasaka a hell of a lot more than he did Mishakuji Yukari, he figured there was no harm in adding an extra notch to the post of the bed he would sleep in for the duration of this “don’t-see, don’t-tell” covert mission.

The offer was out there. If she chose to take him up on it he doubted he’d regret it.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” she said.

If only Munakata was as easy to read. The hesitation before she spoke, indicating she knew him well enough to analyze his sincerity before considering it; the flattered but non-committal tone that gave away the fact that she favored the idea but didn’t want to admit it; the nervous silence that contrasted the rather bold response and exposed unexpected vulnerability.

Time to lighten things up. “I won’t be paying.”

“I’m not-!” The mercenary’s eyes widened as she realized she’d been about to fall into the teasing trap he had blatantly laid in front of her. “You’re a real prick. No wonder even your own clansmen were fooled.”

Now why did that puff up his pride a little? It was probably meant to be an insult. In a rare good mood, he winked and tossed her a throw pillow. “I’ll see what I can do about getting the couch cleaned.”

Immediately dropping it and prompting a burst of laughter from Fushimi, the mercenary growled and spun, her heels clicking primly towards the door. Before he could gift her with a parting shot, however, she paused, her fingers hovering near the handle. With firm resolve, she turned to face him, crossing her arms defensively.

“Fushimi… What’s the deal with you and Mishakuji? Is it real? I’m not jealous! Just… curious.”

Fushimi instantly slipped her gaze and then kicked himself, wishing he didn’t feel so conflicted on the matter. A moment later, he realized he’d rather be conflicted over it than not. If he had no compunctions whatsoever fucking a man like that while he was at odds with the one person he really cared about, he would truly be beyond hope.

 “You’re a professional. What wouldn’t you do to get the job done?”

“That’s… what I thought.”

“Hirasaka.” He stopped her before she could make good on her exit, and waited for her to turn back to him so she could see how serious he was. “I’m not paying you to deliver anything but need-to-know, and nobody needs to know about Mishakuji, got it?”

One last lingering moment of moody speculation and then the mercenary’s features rose cheerfully.

“Now you’ve got me curious as to how much the Blue king would pay for such a secret!”

“More than it’s worth and nowhere near worth it to you to break my contract!” Fushimi shouted after her, his voice rising in volume as she left his line of sight. “And don’t call yourself a ninja!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm only just learning my way around this fandom, still puzzling out the correct spellings of names in romaji and trying to sort canon from fandom background without having yet read the manga so I'm open to advice on such. ^_^
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this first chapter. I marathoned the entire series yesterday just to recap one vital scene and my original idea spiraled out of control. :p


	2. Chapter 2

Every moment of every minute of every hour of every day.

Such poetic over-exaggeration of thought was a pit-fall Munakata made a point of avoiding. He was far, far too busy to spend such a vast amount of time in constant fear for his sacrificial pawn.

He trained for at least one hour every day with twenty minutes total of warm-up and cool-down time for good measure. It was essential that his body remain in fighting form and his instincts retain sharp, honed edges. Usually this took place in the morning.

Meetings, briefings, discussions, phone calls, consultations, and relaying of orders were frequent interruptions throughout the day and evening to the less social duties of reading reports, drafting reports, drafting letters, signing things he didn’t have time to draft himself, signing all manner of forms and documents, researching matters both work-related and private, and educating himself as often as possible on various strategies and procedures taking place.

When possible, he did his best to take time each day for a tea ceremony during whatever window presented itself, as relaxation was essential to the health of the human being and helped to ensure that thought processes remained at peak capacity. Likewise, he tried to take meals without distractions, though on many occasions he compromised for eating at his desk or in the car as a better alternative to eating nothing at all.

Munakata Reisi was a busy man. Every damn moment of every damn minute of every damn hour of every damn day.

Except in that twilight border between wakefulness and sleep. That was the time he gave over to insecurity and paranoia. Only then, did he let the face that lurked in the back of his mind every cursed moment of every… only then, did he allow himself to consciously think of Fushimi, who he had sent into a danger far more complex and threatening than any battlefield his men had yet faced.

Time was short. Five minutes every night. The body required a certain amount of sleep so Munakata had learned to regulate his system so that it would hibernate precisely when he wished rather than wasting precious rest.

Five minutes was hardly time enough to navigate the endless maze of thoughts, memories, and emotions Munakata harbored in regard to Fushimi Saruhiko. As a result, he chose a theme each night and dwelled on it for those five minutes.

Sometimes that was governed by his guilt and focused on issues such as his inability to express his feelings for his subordinate, having feelings for a subordinate, being unable to accurately define those feelings for a subordinate, lusting after a subordinate, lusting after a fragile young man who needed a strong king to rely on, lusting after a rude and arrogant young man who would chaff at the bit at the very thought of submitting to someone that clearly drove him mad, and so-on, and so forth. Guilt was a laden topic.

Fear was another landmine. Not knowing what Fushimi’s status was at any given time and having no way of confirming the well-being of his double agent resulted in all sorts of paranoid imaginings. Another manifestation of fear was the one that he had spoken too harshly in his shocked but grudging understanding as Fushimi let rip into him and then promptly cut all ties with Sceptre 4. (He should have realized sooner what was happening. Had it been anyone else, he would have recognized the compliance to his orders before he felt the all-too-personal impact of such slings and arrows.)

Sometimes, after a hard day, he would take pity on himself and dwell on more pleasant memories, hopes, or tidbits of intel (such as the visual confirmation from Awashima that Fushimi was not only alive but thriving within JUNGLE, having reached J-Rank a mere month since his defection—that had come only days ago). On rare occasions, when he could find no other outlet, he even gave in to the need for a release of pent-up tension and masturbated to fantasies he had no hope of ever actualizing.

Five minutes every night, set aside for contemplation of Fushimi Saruhiko. That was all he could spare. Or, rather, all he would spare. His busy schedule was an excuse. Any more time to that end and he would drive himself mad.

Perhaps that was why he locked all of his feelings and whatever duty he felt he owed to Fushimi into that five minutes. For the rest of every moment of every minute of every hour of every day, he belonged to his clan and to his allies—and yes, that included the subordinate he had assigned as a double agent—and he would do all that was in his power to bring each of them through this right up until the moment it ended—for him, or for the Dresden Slate.

Perhaps one day he would be around to lift the limitation on personal thoughts of Fushimi, just as he had done after the crisis concerning Suoh Mikoto. Only, this time, he hoped to be able to put all that accumulated time of thinking, worrying, and planning to good use on a live and well Fushimi.

For now, he justified his current actions as part of that necessary formula crammed into moments, minutes, hours, and days, as being productive to personal needs that thus aided and enabled his leadership capabilities. He was obligated to pursue a keen and healthy mental state and to that end, he had sought a rather satisfying bed partner to help relieve his frustrations. Not that Munakata would be seeing his bed any time soon. The crucial five minutes before sleep was a couple of hours away yet; mostly because he currently had Yatogami Kurou locked into a deep, lengthy kiss and pinned up against his desk.

At first, the formal young man who styled himself after the chivalrous myth of the samurai of old had been confused and wary of his advances. Munakata had spoken truly, though, when he referenced their chemistry. Kurou’s ideals and aesthetics were clear and straightforward, and they appealed to the structure and military precision that facilitated order in Munakata’s life.

In some ways, he was not as removed from the chaos of the line of Red kings as most would believe but it was his need for and craving of order that defined him as Blue through and through. Yatogami Kurou would have done well as his clansman if the peace-loving Silver king hadn’t tamed and claimed this one first.

That didn’t mean Munakata couldn’t borrow him from time to time. Whether Weisman knew of the trysts that had developed shortly after his return, or whether he remained in the dark about Yatogami’s infatuation with the Blue king were moot. As long as he returned the borrowed resource in… well, near-mint condition… there was nothing to fret over.

Despite certain naiveties, Yatogami was a clever young man and he learned fast that heart didn’t have to be involved where bodies and minds were compatible. At times he was as sweet and pliant as the blushing young virgin he had been at first. At other times, he exhibited a rebellious streak and temporary abandon such as Munakata had never dared to imagine. The Blue king’s favorite state, however, was the one in which Yatogami exhibited both qualities in conflict and alternation, such as he did now.

The kiss had begun as a slow pressing against the desk as Yatogami leaned away and Munakata advanced, leering, until their lips met. Despite his predatory stalking of the retreating prey, Munakata’s kiss turned soft the moment it made contact and his features smoothed out and relaxed just as did Yatogami’s.

Lips brushed, tongues flicked out accidentally and then deliberately, and then Munakata waited as Yatogami’s tongue slid with welcome into his mouth and tried to tempt his own into the sliding tangle that eventually worked up into a crushing, passionate attempt of each to devour something of the other’s will. The black dog’s fist was curled in Munakata’s clothing, crumpling the ironed straights of the fabric that had survived with impeccable presentation throughout a long day only to fall victim to this intense young man’s need.

It was Munakata who broke the kiss, reluctant to give in but somewhat undone by this aggressive turn. He fought to regain command of his faltering breath and adjusted the glasses that tilted precariously, hanging from one ear and the bridge of his nose.

He needn’t have bothered. A moment later, Kurou ripped them away and then pulled Munakata down on top of him as he reclined on the desk.

Trying to be subtle, Munakata diverted his kisses to neck and ears, fumbling clumsily with one hand at Yatogami’s clothes even as he surreptitiously rescued a small stack of signed documents awaiting retrieval with the other. When Yatogami had been sent in representation of the Silver king with updates in strategy, Munakata decided to receive him formally in the office after having kept him waiting due to some urgently marked and expected but not actually urgently needed documents from the prime minister’s office. He hadn’t expected the update from Weisman to be such a lengthy one and had since cancelled the remainder of his schedule. Thus, here they were at such a late hour, making out in his office which really shouldn’t be used for such activities.

Oh well. If he could compromise to eat at his desk, Munakata figured he could stretch that compromise to other activities, too. Besides, he’d always wanted to try it just once, and he suspected the desk would not belong to him much longer. According to his source within the Gold clan, the Mihashira debacle was about to catch up with him.

All the more reason to enjoy this first and final hurrah on his desk, with Yatogami Kurou thoroughly at his disposal, he reasoned. Nuzzling and tasting the young man’s skin even as he rolled black material and a stiff nipple between his thumb and forefinger, he drew a note of longing from the submissive-again tamed pup.

“Shiro reminded me recently… of the first time we met,” Yatogami breathed suddenly.

From his tone, punctuated with tell-tale noises of pleasure, Munakata gathered that he was to listen, and keep his hands and tongue busy. He obliged, by tweaking open the buttons from breast to waist and then kissing his way back up.

“I never realized what a grudge I’d held until Neko provided a colorful commentary of the fight. I was a fool to think I could be a worthwhile distraction to such a powerful king. You were just toying with me.”

Munakata smirked around the plump little bud of flesh between his lips, suckling and rolling it about with this tongue. That “fight” had been quite an amusement to him, but it had also peaked his interest in the untapped potential that was only now beginning to surface.

“So it made me wonder... and the way things are lately, I have to ask. Have I been just as useless in distracting you from whatever it is you’ve been suffering since Christmas? Someone like me… I’m no match for a king.”

Munakata briefly drew away from the body that was putty in his hands. He smoothly tackled the belt buckle that kept him from escalating this seduction beyond such futile concerns. Even Yatogami wouldn’t passively await a response for long, so he headed off the follow-up before the mood grew too serious.

“You’re match enough for a man,” he said, tugging Yatogami by the legs until his butt was on the edge of the desk and his pants slid off more easily. “And this man is tired of butting heads with kings.” Bending to lip and nose the thin, straight erection that appropriately—or perhaps not depending on the context—reminded Munakata of a drawn sword, he let out an excess of breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. “Let’s not do this,” he said. “Let’s just enjoy it while it lasts.”

“Are you, though? Are you enjoying it?” challenged Yatogami, forcing him to look up and meet those dark, frustrated eyes.

Rising, Munakata thumped his palms onto the desk, on either side of his small-framed lover, looming close but with enough distance that his expression was clear and readable. “I’ve got a history of falling for men who don’t want me and stumbling into situations where mutual hurt is almost synonymous with hot sex. Am I enjoying spending what little time I can steal from my duties in the pleasurable pursuit of mutual gratification with someone I rather admire and don’t hate in the least? Funnily enough, I’d say, I am.”

Intending to soothe the harsh tone with a kiss, Munakata paused as Yatogami stammered an apology. Of course he hadn’t meant to bring up such unpleasant memories. How could he have possibly known?

Forgoing the kiss, Munakata glided back down to his lover’s crotch and buried any further potential for chatter under an avalanche of moans. Taking Yatogami down his throat, he boxed Mikoto back up for a while, right alongside Fushimi. They didn’t belong here in his mind, right now.

Yatogami wasn’t a distraction, he was a blessing. One Munakata would have been lost without.

*

_Black hair set free of its ties and fanned out over the elegant mahogany and rich trimmings and linings of a desk that had seen a forest’s worth of sheaves of paper with a river’s worth of ink scratched in. Skin like coffee filled so high with milk it might as well just be straight milk pressed with lines and seams that left delightful imprints from an object that was more like a permanent habitat. Eyes lacquered like the shiny black buttons of the uniform draped over and around them to shield from the after-hours cold when heaters were fast asleep like all good soldiers should be._

On second thought, Yatogami was a terrible distraction.

Munakata stilled the idle wanderings of his fingers over the scrolling woodwork of his desk and tried really, really hard not to remember the moans and cries that had wrung out only the night before. It was appallingly inappropriate to be caught up in such thoughts with the Japanese prime minister strolling in unannounced, no doubt to end Munakata’s short but decorated career.

At least he’d fulfilled one last career goal… and more.

_“Say my name,” he’d breathed, sheathing himself as deep as he could go and pinning Yatogami flush to the desk with the weight of his toned and chiseled torso. “Not captain, or king, or any of the other things everyone else calls me—call me by my name.”_

_“M-Mu-“_

_The mistake had been cut off with a bruising kiss that put both of their tongues in danger of being bitten as Munakata applied a series of shallow but strong thrusts that shook the desk and sent them sliding across it little by little. The way he had to strain for solid footing had Yatogami’s erection trapped and ground against the muscular ridges of his lower stomach, doubling the onslaught of sensation and reducing the young man to a rasping mess. Throwing an arm over his face as soon as he was released, he haphazardly wiped away a circlet of sweat from his forehead._

_“Go on,” Munakata encouraged, regulating himself to a minute rocking that never-the-less elicited spontaneous gasps of breath because Munakata had positioned himself well indeed._

_“Reisi,” came the moan he’d been waiting for._

_He increased the scope of his thrusts._

_“Reisi!”_

_Scooping Yatogami up by the shoulders, he slid them back towards the edge of the desk where he could get better footing but the black dog surfaced with startling speed and the next thing he knew, it was he who lay with his back on the desk, his ass hovering in the air, and his legs arching down to the ground as Yatogami teetered over him, knees and thighs balanced precariously against his body with shins protruding into the air. The Silver clansman leaned forward and began to ride him with frantic need._

_Breathless and growling with lust, Yatogami leaned over to return Munakata’s words to him._

_“Say my name.”_

_He’d wanted so badly to hear his name on Yatogami’s lips as soon as he realized that he never had—because there was someone else he wasn’t supposed to think about who had never called him by his name, who he desperately wanted to call him by his name… It had never occurred to him that he was equally guilty of having omitted such a personal form of address in the course of this casual-yet-vital relationship that held him together._

_He didn’t need to remind himself of the correct name, or hesitate to speak it. He didn’t even wish it were another whose name he called. Not until five minutes to 1am when he lay in bed, sated and languid after a hot soak and imagined shouting a different name…_

_For now, he bucked and cried out, “Kurou!”_

Seated behind the desk that was no longer his, Munakata rocked back in the chair he no longer possessed and watched the door close behind the exiting prime minister with a firm click. He hadn’t been entirely focused on the unorthodox visit—as evidenced by the terribly inappropriate hard-on that had bumped uncomfortable against the edge of the desk as he had leaned forward to shake the prime minister’s hand in proper form while being thanked for his service.

He wondered if Awashima would sit here in the days to come, and how she would react if she knew what had taken place on that elegant, oh-so-innocent surface. She wouldn’t, though—sit there, that was. Munakata knew without a doubt that she would never assume the privileges of her temporary rank—or would it become permanent?—because she was as loyal as they came.

Just as well. There was a stain under the pen holder he didn’t really care to explain. What she didn’t know, she couldn't complain about to Fushimi when the once-and-future officer returned to his rightful place at Sceptre 4.

As long as he did return.

With a sigh, Munakata gazed at the desk he would no longer be chained to for hours on end. How mundane. Now what was he supposed to do with every moment of every minute of every hour of every day until it was time to make his move?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uh... did I say this was Munakata/Fushimi?  
> It really is! I swear! ... Don't be fooled by my getting carried away with this unexpected gem of a pairing that I promise isn't at all tempting me to change my mind all together. ... ^_^; 
> 
> In all seriousness, I probably should have saved this for a one-shot but hey; the muse is that it is.


	3. Chapter 3

Biting her lips, Hirasaka drew a slow, deep breath in through her nose and trembled as she silently breathed it out again. Had she called the Blue king a tyrant? Because he was. The kind of tyrant her blooming teenaged self had fantasized would kidnap, woo, and then proceed to defile her in every way imaginable… Not that she clung to such fantasies as an adult but… Some things were better than fantasy.

That was what she made of the groaning, sweating clash of elegant limbs, prominent muscles, and strong wills she found herself witness to as Munakata had his way with the black dog, Yatogami Kurou. At moments, the encounter was grippingly tender, but mostly it was just sheer erotica.

Just after Yatogami had ridden himself to a shattering climax with a strangled howl and collapsed over an equally spent Munakata Reisi, she had retreated from the shadowed tatami platform and phased through walls until she found a locked meeting room where she could take care of the insatiable heat in her loins after that degenerate display.

The handover would have to wait until he was alone. Fushimi would not be happy. Perhaps for several reasons.

Weak and sticky from an unusually powerful climax to do the vision justice, she decided to withdraw temporarily and stole into a public bath house to clean herself up and restore control to her limbs. When she dried off, dressed, and checked her PDA, she was annoyed to find a mission awaiting her, issued by none other than Fushimi himself.

Cover, she supposed. Well, she may as well stake out that operation overnight and then return to the target of her covert op once she could look him in the eyes without suffering a humiliating blush.

So it was that, having tagged the political targets she would take out of commission with the time logged convincingly on her way back, she concealed herself in the Blue king’s office and waited for him to return and to be alone. She had watched for long enough to confirm the target’s solitude and was about to reveal her presence when the prime minister himself barged in and revealed his hand, giving Munakata Reisi little choice but to resign of his own volition and relegate Sceptre 4 to the control of Lieutenant Awashima, who would surely be reduced to a puppet of the government.

She was mad enough on his behalf to reveal herself shortly after the prime minister left, before he could summon his former subordinates to impart the news. The moment she did, the damn fool surged from his seat, whirled upon her, and took firm hold of both her wrists, pinning them behind her back while his arms exerted a force that crushed her against his strong body. He beamed and said, “Nin!”

Blinking in sheer bewilderment, it took Hirasaka several moments to start burning up as her heaving breaths caused her nipples to bob all too comfortably against his pectoral muscles. She became aware of the boner pressing into her lower belly and was incredulous to conceive that he had been sporting it throughout what was essentially his exit interview. Most unforgivably, the delicious view she had feasted on the previous night replayed in her mind and she felt her knees weaken as parts of her she was usually estranged from on the job began to throb.

“Did you enjoy the show last night?” he asked, in what she could only describe as a bedroom voice. “I’m eager to hear news of Fushimi-kun, but I could hardly tip off my guest by cutting him off with blue balls when you showed up. Naughty of you to peek.”

Closing her eyes to compose herself even as his breath tickled her cheeks and lashes, Hirasaka made a decision. She would take Fushimi up on his offer—but not just because she was disgustingly horny and planning the resolution of that state took the edge off somewhat; she would accept Fushimi’s offer because never once in all of their association had he objectified her like this. His recent flirting had been incumbent upon signs that it was welcome and free of obligation. This raunchy, cavalier advance of a man so confident in himself he seemed to expect instant reciprocation might go down well with teenaged girls and inexperienced lads but it didn’t fly with her.

“Take your filthy hands off me,” she intoned. “I know where they’ve been.”

She’d said something similar to Fushimi last night.

Fushimi, who—JUNGLE gossip had quickly discovered—had been wrapped around the not-so-little finger of Mishakuji Yukari since his J-Rank promotion.

Now, Munakata Reisi, who had shamelessly cavorted with his little lover, Yatogami Kurou, before her eyes in this very room, his own (former) office.

From what she had gleaned from her jailers and her own observations of the two—Fushimi, in particular, over the last month—she would have sworn the young man belonged to his king body and soul, and signs had hinted that a similar sentiment was equally as likely of Munakata.

 _I’ll gladly give you a tumble. Just don’t expect anything beyond that,_ she recalled Fushimi warning her, and now thought to herself, _Don’t worry, Fushimi. I have no delusions of what to expect from you. I just hope you don’t have any about this walking sack of pheromones you’re sacrificing so much for._

Munakata released her wrists but otherwise didn’t move a muscle, forcing her to back up to put some distance between them. She scowled at him, rubbing her wrists because that was an action less indecent than rubbing other things.

“What makes you so sure I’m with Fushimi?” she asked.

“Among other things…” The former Sceptre 4 captain leaned casually back against the chair he had vacated. “I can’t imagine any other reason you would willingly appear before me considering that the last time you set foot in Sceptre 4’s domain was to be thrown into a cell.”

Hirasaka was forced to reassess just a little as the Blue king’s features softened and his expression took on a hint of pleading. “How is he?”

No demand for the intel she must be there to supply. No power-play banter or inquiry to ascertain whether or not she had any other agendas or hidden motives. Without hesitation, he revealed his weakness to her, a potential enemy, right after riling her up with plenty of motive to use such a thing against him.

It was tempting, too. She had just the right card to play in Mishakuji Yukari… but Fushimi had all but begged her to keep that one secret concealed. Whatever she had witnessed and whatever she might guess, she had no right to betray his trust in her.

“Conceited, reckless, pig-headed, and infuriating,” she responded.

She resolved to hand over the package and get the hell out of there without wasting another minute on this uncomfortable confrontation but her expression soured as she realized she’d been so irritated by the prime minister’s attitude—and on behalf of this cave man!—that she forgot to ready the USB for transfer. She could still feel it nestled under her right breast.

Considering her options caused enough delay for Munakata to continue the thread of the conversation.

“So, typical Fushimi then. Glad to know he’s well.”

The answer to her dilemma came to her with a sprig of relief and she turned her back, planning to casually make her exit as she fingered the USB free with the intention of tossing it over her shoulder—but Munakata was swift; damnably so. Caught fast in his arms once again, she gasped as one long finger slid down the curve of her breast and slipped beneath. In just a few motions, he had discerned the hiding place she was reaching for and gotten there first.

“Thank you for the shapely delivery,” he murmured.

Had they not both known his little love affair had resulted in a marked delay in said delivery, she would have suggested that he meant to say “timely.”

… “If it weren’t for the little show you put on last night, I would have insisted that you meant ‘timely,’” she said as casually as she could manage while seething inside and kicking herself for capitulating to petty temptation.

“My, your client is a rather impatient one. I should think he would be furious at your facilitation of such a delay… I’ll keep your secret if you’ll keep mine.”

She had nothing to say to that, but he stopped her a moment before she could phase through the wall.

“Hirasaka! Watch out for him… and find me tomorrow. 11am at the location where you were captured by Sceptre 4. I’ll have instructions for you both.”

*

“The drop is complete,” Hirasaka reported, leaning against the wall beside Fushimi’s open bathroom door to give him privacy while he toweled off his wet hair and dried down, having been pulled out of the bath by her untimely return.

“About time. And the other?”

“Both targets were immobilized by non-lethal means and will be unable to participate in the scheduled conference they were to use as a rallying opportunity,” she reported. Not that Fushimi had specified any such action. In fact, his wording had been to “take out” the two politicians who were actively fostering opposition to the Green clan and those in their thrall. It was a purely cosmetic mission as they both knew the slate would reach its limit any day now and then Nagare’s vision would come to fruition. Hirasaka saw no reason to kill those men simply to cover up her true mission. That she knew Fushimi would not have approved of murder despite his own lack of specificity in the matter was irrelevant. That he emerged from the bathroom with a small towel on his head and a larger one wrapped precariously around his hips while also wearing an appraising look that implied approval of her solving the moral dilemma within the required scope of the mission was slightly more relevant.

One towel fell as he moved past her. The other slipped dangerously low. He grabbed at it casually and turned with another question on his lips but she had already judged her business obligation completed by then and stepped into his guard, sliding her fingers over his smooth-skinned yet ruggedly textured bicep.

His mind was as quick as Munakata’s actions. She wiped the smug grin off his face with the prompting of lips she had once been told were “plump and bossy.” She rather liked that description. All the better to deal with smarmy know-it-alls who talked too much when action was called for and not at all when words might save the day.

*

Surprised by how at ease he felt, lying in bed with one arm loosely draped around Hirasaka whose limbs overlapped with his here and there in turn, Fushimi was forced to concede that he had craved this kind of post-coital company. The rough romps with Mishakuji Yukari bothered him in ways he had yet to identify but this incidental closeness with another human being was healing to his soul, if not to his body.

He wasn’t usually in the habit of bathing in the early evening. The only reason he had been doing so when Hirasaka finally showed up was because a midday encounter with Mishakuji had gone from shop talk to the inevitable.

Hirasaka hadn’t commented on the bite marks down the curve of his neck or the hickey at the joint where his shoulder and pectoral muscles fused. Without a word for the stiff motions he had sought to hide, she maneuvered him onto his back and unwittingly mirrored his earlier performance of perching atop an aggressively passive Mishakuji Yukari.

Comparing the two instances that occurred within only hours of each other, Fushimi felt disgusted with himself and the memory of his own actions. He was no victim. He’d been the one to reach for Mishakuji—not the other way around—and there had been no ulterior motive, no information he thought he could yet glean from his J-Rank peer. He just needed the temporary oblivion of getting lost in the act and not thinking about what was taking Hirasaka so long or—more pressingly—the man she should have already returned from meeting with.

Despising himself, he’d clambered atop Mishakuji when the man had lingered too long in tasting his body. In retaliation, the swordsman had reclined lazily as if to say, “If you don’t want to do it my way, you’ll have to do it all yourself.”

And so Fushimi had done; grinding and riding, bucking and thudding, basically fucking himself blind with very little cooperation from the man on the other end of a very lifelike dildo until the stimulation had proven too much. Only then had Mishakuji commented on the ugliness of his “uncouth flailing about for inelegant gratification” and benevolently shown him how it should be done. Sitting up and leveraging them both until they hung at a 45 degree angle, Mishakuji had then raised his hips with thigh-slapping vigor and sent Fushimi reeling with no lament for the bruising he would suffer later.

He could have brushed Hirasaka off. He could have made up some excuse, or pretended he had never been serious about the invitation, or he could have simply told her he was sore from getting slammed only hours ago if he truly cared as little as he pretended.

Instead, he accepted her advance without hesitation and buried the recognition that he couldn’t procrastinate forever and when they were done, he was going to have to ask about Munakata. He hadn’t expected her to be quite so savvy as to the complaints of his body and work around them so smoothly. Thus, he was grateful, and more at peace than he would have expected. For all his rabid rutting with Mishakuji, this quiet, comfortable aftermath was far more successful in leashing his demons.

“There’s something you should know.”

“Go on.”

“It took a while to get the job done because… I witnessed something I shouldn’t have. I didn’t mean to spy but I had to wait to get him alone…”

“If I was worried about you spying on the captain, I wouldn’t have sent you.”

“…He’s not ‘the captain’ anymore. That’s what I saw. The prime minister dismissed him.”

“Shit. You’re not serious.”

“He signed a document tendering his resignation in recompense for his ‘failure as the commanding officer of Sceptre 4 to uphold their duty of keeping a vital military asset from the grasp of enemy forces’ or something worded along those lines.”

“Idiot!”

“It wasn’t exactly optional.”

“Those bastards at HOMRA are gonna love this.”

Fushimi fumed in silence. After everything he had done to clean up his king’s mess and restore grace to Sceptre 4, Munakata was just kicking the bucket with a few flicks of the wrist!

Maybe it was just as well Fushimi had the Green clan to fall back on.

Never mind that his gut twisted and he felt sick with himself for formulating such a thought.

Hirasaka’s cheek shifted against his shoulder, reminding him that he had temporarily consigned himself to the anti-luxury of not being alone.

“What exactly did the Reds do to you that you hate them so much?” she asked.

“I don’t hate them.” It took Fushimi a confused moment to recall that he had brought up HOMRA seemingly out of nowhere.

Just because she didn’t call him out on the lie didn’t mean she believed him, and just because she didn’t say out loud that she didn’t believe him didn’t mean her judgment didn’t rankle.

“Not all of them.”

She turned more directly in to his body and burrowed herself to her satisfaction. “Whatever. Let’s leave it at that. I don’t really care about your emotional problems.”

That was Hirasaka taking pity on him, and it was surprisingly effective. Had she poked and prodded him and dug around for more information, he would have clammed up like the social recluse he was accustomed to being, kicked her out of his bed, and promptly scrubbed the whole dalliance from his memory. As it was, genuine disinterest made it easy to confess what he had zealously defended from prying minds for so long.

“I finally found a king I could be proud of… and even then he was falling in love with the one I fled,” he mumbled.

That got her interest. She raised her head. “Munakata Reisi and Suoh Mikoto? That’s absurd.”

“You never saw them together—fighting, usually, but it was more like a physical metaphor for rough sex.” Fushimi sighed, giving in to the confused jumble of emotions he hadn’t felt so strongly since Mikoto’s demise. He’d submitted to Mikoto’s strength but he had genuinely respected Munakata. When he saw what was in the captain’s eyes whenever he confronted Mikoto, he’d felt betrayed. How could Munakata choose the man Fushimi had abandoned? How could Munakata subject himself to the turmoil of a compassionless love over the offer of a loyalty that eclipsed all other ties? It burned him up inside to watch Mikoto engulf Munakata the way he had engulfed all of HOMRA—all but Fushimi. “The way they went at it… My cool, calm captain turned wild when he faced down Mikoto, like he was being sucked into that inferno of raging wrath and searing passion.”

“That’s awfully poetic of you,” Hirasaka noted, pillowing her head on her own arm and observing him with a little distance between them.

He refused to look at her and see pity or scorn projected out of those smooth, calculating eyes. “It’s accurate,” he defended.

“Next you’ll say, ‘They were like night and day.’”

The teasing tone took a moment to register, but when it did, it served to unknot the little strings of tension that had begun to form in him again. Instead of regretting putting his private feelings into words, he felt a sense of relief. It urged him to playfulness even as he sought to unburden himself just a little bit more.

“Not at all,” he said, turning onto his side to face the adorable woman he was suddenly very glad he had propositioned. “They were both of the night variety, but that didn’t make them any more compatible. Barely sufferable, sweltering summer nights and winter nights when the cold settles so deeply it burns…”

“Now you’re waxing poetic on purpose,” she accused, running a hand down one shoulder while her eyes skimmed across to the burn mark in parallel to where her fingers rested.

“Yeah,” he agreed, smirking. “And you’re lapping it up. I should have known you’d go in for a descriptive BL sob story.”

The blush that rose to her cheeks was rather uncharacteristic, but it was the flicker of guilt in her eyes and the lines of her jaw that caught his attention. He could tell by her expression in the next moment that she knew it hadn’t gone under the radar. She pulled away from him and rolled out of the bed, drawing herself up as she flicked that pale-gold hair about her luscious body.

“Tomorrow at 11am I’ll meet with the Blue king again to receive his orders based on the intel you provided,” she said, stoic and formal as if she wasn’t still coated in sweat and other fluids of their making. The mask slipped a little as she added, “If there’s anything else you wish me to convey to him…?”

Something wasn’t right but Fushimi instinctively knew her reaction was too personal for it to be an issue that would threaten his mission. Perhaps the captain had led her on or made a move on her. Maybe that was why she’d been so quick to jump his bones. Whatever she was hiding, as long as it bore no importance to his mission, he didn’t have the freedom to be concerned just now.

“You can convey to him that he’s an idiot and a disappointment,” Fushimi said coldly, with the imminent destruction of Sceptre 4 in mind. What good was it if he managed to take down the Green clan from the inside if he lost a home to return to?

“I’ll tell him you’re in good spirits,” she drawled, almost dressed now and sparing him a look of exasperation. When she was almost out the door, she threw a glance back over her shoulder, as if having heard a non-existent call of her name from the indifferent man on the bed. “Thanks for the tumble,” she said dryly. “Maybe we can try it again some time when you haven’t just been tenderized and seasoned to Mishakuji Yukari’s preferences.” The next words, she spoke to the door frame before breezing out into the falling night. “You should put an end to that. You want to be battle-ready when the time comes and you’re not going to get anything out of that man by sleeping around.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaand that's enough hetero. The idea of this pairing appealed to me in its feasibility and for the sake of character development but it's way out of my comfort zone. lol The irony.


	4. Chapter 4

“Swish! Upupupupup, gotcha! Uhoh! Ahuh! Swoosh…”

It was strange to remember how distracting that running commentary had been when Neko had first decided that watching his training sessions was as good a way to spend her limitless free time as any other. Rolling about nearby on the concrete surface—regardless of the weather which happened to be quite chilly this windy morning—her eyes were always pinned on the wooden sword with which he ran through the traditional forms, keeping his muscles in shape and his instincts fresh.

Once, it had been immensely difficult to focus as her onomatopoeia and colorful descriptions tugged at him with their confusing interpretations. “How the hell is that a ‘Fum’ and what does that even mean?” “There’s nothing to ‘Smack’ so that sound isn’t even possible!” Such outbursts had constantly disrupted his motions before he could remind himself to ignore her and focus. Not that Neko was ever put off by a scolding that came from him, though Shiro was a different story. At the time, Shiro had been absent—or else she probably would have been bugging him instead of driving Kurou up the wall. As it was, he had grown so used to her vocalizations that the rare occasions when she didn’t accompany him now felt so quiet as to be off-putting.

As he went through the motions of sheathing his blade and finished with a bow to the spectral presence he conceived Ichigen-sama to be, Kurou felt himself awaken from the trance of concentration to which her commentary had become white noise. As conscious thought unfurled in him once more, he noted that even her originally random ramblings had begun to resemble a pattern which she pinned down more closely each time he ran through a specific form.

Laughter and applause drew both their attention.

“You two would make a great comic duo,” Shiro told them with a beaming grin that was ridiculously prideful in addition to the inherent amusement. “How about we put you down for a performance at the next school festival?”

“Swordsmanship is a discipline, not an entertainment,” Kurou mumbled, wondering at the warmth in his cheeks that implied he was moved by the pointless praise.

“Oh?”

A brief glance at Shiro brought a frown to Kurou’s brows. The speculation in those disconcertingly pale eyes was unexpected.

“What?” he asked bluntly. A moment later, he reiterated in the formal manner that shielded him in times of social complication, “I would beseech you to speak what you’re thinking.” He was annoyed that Shiro would hold anything back from him, especially now that he had returned to their lives. He might be a shameless trickster and lie without compunction when it suited him, but Shiro rarely avoided something he considered an issue.

“What I was thinking was something I shouldn’t have. Unnecessary thoughts that would cause pain aren’t meant to be spoken aloud,” said the king in earnest.

Searching his eyes, Kurou remembered something Ichigen-sama had taught him once. He reached into his pocket and briefly hesitated, wondering if the right recording was destined to instruct him or if he would receive other guidance. “ _To understand the motives behind the words of another, first one must understand oneself and the way one is perceived._ ” Pinpoint accuracy. Every time. One could only marvel at the coincidence.

In other words… if Shiro’s speculative expression and cryptic words brought Mishakuji Yukari to mind for Kurou, then the king’s motive for not voicing his thoughts was because he didn’t want to bring up Ichigen’s older disciple in front of the younger?

…Ridiculous. If Kurou was thinking of Yukari it was only because he was grasping at straws. What connection could Shiro have possibly made between that narcissist and the subject of Kurou’s training?

_A discipline, not an entertainment…_

For a moment, there had been another word on the tip of his tongue, had there not? One that he discarded because swordsmanship was exactly that to Yukari…

“It’s not,” he said aloud, still held by Shiro’s thoughtful gaze. “An art form,” he clarified. “And you can mention Mishakuji Yukari. I’m not made of glass.”

Shiro sighed. “I just wanted to spend some quality time with my darling pets,” he said—and the most infuriating part of it was that he did so without a single hint of teasing in his tone, as if he didn’t think twice about labeling them as such. Neko was one thing. Kurou—quite human and no-one’s kept animal—was quite another. He almost said so but Shiro continued sadly, “It seems I’ve ruined the moment precisely by trying not to. I have a lot to learn about being a companion, let alone a leader of clansmen.”

Kurou’s own guilty sentiment at the flat self-disappointment in that statement echoed Neko’s outburst of “Stupid Kuro!” The feline-in-girl’s-clothing pounced on their king and rubbed up against his cheek in as honest a display of affection as one could engage in.

Cutting into her ongoing derogatory rant interspersed with bubbles of love for her master, Kurou spoke with sincerity. “Such consideration for your clansmen is exactly what makes you the king I chose to serve,” he said, then bent into an apologetic bow. “My response to your kindness was unworthy.”

The tender touch to his head, which drew out into a gentle petting, almost spurred him to an even more unworthy performance but Kurou choked down the objection and forced himself to accept the show of affection. Truth-be-told, once his initial reaction passed, the stroking of his hair was warming and he began to relax and lean into it.

“Perhaps we both have lessons to learn from,” said Shiro. Abruptly, he changed the subject. “What did the Blue king have to say about our proposal?” he asked. “He certainly kept you late enough.”

Kurou rose from his bow with a curt spin and strode towards the fence. He pretended to survey the campus as he fought down the blush that burned his cheeks. It was absurd to feel so embarrassed. He had been with Munakata for weeks now and never felt ashamed—not until Shiro had returned. All of a sudden, the emotional bond he felt towards Shiro had begun to cast a shadow of guilt over the sexual nature of Kurou’s dealings with Munakata. He was sure the Silver king would judge him for his promiscuity, or for becoming involved not only with a member of another clan but its very king. Shiro had to be aware of the secretive affair; he made too many comments like that dig at how late Kurou had returned not to know what was going on. So far, he hadn’t said anything outright, though.

Kurou’s hands clenched on the protective railing. It was a moot point, anyway—or, it soon would be. There had been something insultingly final about the way Munakata had behaved the previous night. He had soaked in the sight of Kurou upon that desk as though it were something he would never have the opportunity to see again.

Unbidden, the image of a certain traitor came to mind and Kurou felt his gut clench. The former Sceptre 4 third-in-command had thrown his lot in with JUNGLE. That the Green clan’s plots were about to come to an end with Shiro’s masterful plan didn’t mean anything. Traitors didn’t just get absorbed back into the fold. Munakata couldn’t possibly forgive such treachery even if the young man did survive. He wouldn’t set Kurou aside for… for…

Another image wormed its way to the fore—one that Kurou had been denying as he let his jealousy run rampant. An immense sword, decorated in sapphire and riddled with cracks as whole pieces began to crumble about the edges.

“He won’t make it,” Kurou muttered; disturbed by the wet wavering of vision that implied tears squirming to be freed. Traitors aside, if Munakata was bidding him farewell, it was because he feared the worst. “He can handle the Grey king… but his Sword of Damocles won’t survive it.”

Shiro’s hand on his shoulder shouldn’t have surprised him but it did. His king was comforting him regardless of how he felt about Kurou’s association with Munakata.

“Then we’ll just have to work fast to do our part, you and I,” he said.

A momentary silence full of promise but also infused with an odd note of something else.

“And _wagahai_!” came Neko’s shrill objection to having been left out of this poignant affirmation. “Neko is Shiro’s Neko and where Shiro goes Neko goes and Neko will help save Boss Megane so Kurosuke doesn’t have to be sad! …Why is Kuro so sad? Neko doesn’t want even Boss Megane to get hurt—but lots of people could get hurt. Even Anna could get hurt... So we’ll stop that birdbrain first!”

_Sacrifice._

What Kurou heard in his king’s voice was the resignation of self-sacrifice but it couldn’t mean what Kurou interpreted. Ichigen-sama had never seen him that way. The bond between a king and his clansmen was one of love, but not _that_ kind of love.

He chose to hope that Munakata would make it through somehow but there was no guarantee that their sexual relationship would become anything more meaningful once they surpassed the approaching fork in the timeline of the world. Whichever branch the future proceeded along, Kurou was prepared to walk down it without expectations of Munakata—and certainly not of Shiro.

*

They weren’t ready. Neither he, nor Kurou, was ready for the love Shiro had become painfully aware of in his leave of absence. As memory-wiped Isana Yashiro, he had felt a strong attraction to the handsome young swordsman he had met that fateful day in Shibuya. Never mind the sword at his throat, or the deadly chase around the mulberry bush that had followed; the instinct towards attraction had easily overwhelmed that of fear. Isana Yashiro was a teenager. Hormones were illogical.

Adolf. K. Weisman was not only an adult, but a rather long-lived one at that. He had loved, once, but he had left that love behind unrequited and tucked it away in his heart, unacknowledged and forgotten for decades until he witnessed the dying breaths of that still beloved man.

His longevity counted for exactly nothing. Ruled now by the whims of a teenager’s body and as virginal as a blushing bride when it came to actual experience, he was as hormonal as Isana Yashiro had been and accounting for decades of repression to boot. Worse, his years had brought knowledge if not the wisdom of experience, and he was aware that the emotion he associated with his loyal, handsome, and utterly adorable clansman was not the same as the love he felt for the heartful bubble of life and laughter that was Neko. This love was another thing entirely. It occupied his thoughts whenever Kurou was not present, and it altered his mood toward levity whenever Kurou was. It hurt him when he opened his fingers and let Kurou retract his hand to go to the Blue king’s side. It hurt him even more for knowing that he was in no danger of losing his clansman. His jealousy was just that; jealousy. It had nothing to do with a lack of loyalty. It just hurt to think that Kurou chose to be with another man—any other man at all; it didn’t matter that Munakata Reisi was the Blue king.

But Kurou wasn’t ready to know how he felt and to deal with the repercussions of that, whether he chose to accept or reject Shiro’s feelings. Nor was Shiro ready to face the potential of rejection—or to struggle with the depth of bonding that a relationship required, should Kurou come to love him in return. He had been alone for too long, and for now, being responsible for the reckless cat and fierce dog who called him their king was challenge enough. So he teased, and laughed, and even gave Kurou little shoves in Munakata’s direction because he’d rather see the boy content than selfishly hold him prisoner.

Besides, they had the fate of the world to re-write.

Shiro’s reason for seeking out his clansmen on the roof had not been to rile them up with teasing or to wallow in the loneliness and frustration that came with the dilemma of Munakata Reisi’s degrading Sword of Damocles. Even so, his business was related to the Blue king. He had just received word from a confidant in the Gold clan that the prime minister had been granted approval to remove Munakata from his seat at the helm of Sceptre 4. This would complicate their plans and Shiro wanted to sound out his ideas on how to proceed with his clansmen. Now was not the time to bring up Munakata again, though. It would have to wait until Kurou’s melancholy had passed. In the meantime, there was plenty to discuss regarding the potential surprises that might await Shiro and his friends at the heart of JUNGLE.

The day passed productively, with several fine meals and plenty of harmless play to disrupt the tension that would do them no good whatsoever. After dinner, Neko begged Shiro to go walking with her but quickly gave up on that ill-formed idea when the cold made itself known the moment they set foot outside. As a result, she took her energy on a jaunt to Kukuri’s dorm room and Shiro returned to his own, where Kurou lay on the carpet, contemplating the ceiling. It was as good a time as any to explain the shift in circumstance.

“Kurou, I’ve just had word from the Gold clan,” he lied smoothly. “It would seem that the Blue king has resigned from Sceptre 4. We will have to adjust accordingly.”

The startled widening of coal-black eyes began a journey that led Shiro along through several stages of emotion and ended strangely in relief. “Munakata Reisi will no longer occupy his office?”

It was a strange way of putting it—rather political—but then, Kurou had always been susceptible to formal terms. “Lieutenant Awashima will be in charge of Sceptre 4 for the immediate future.”

“And the Blue king?”

The form of address implied that Kurou was referring to what this meant for their plans, not for the man’s future. “The Blue king’s power is in his soul, not his position. If he is willing to carry out his role—and he must be, for this to succeed—then his clansmen will no doubt play out their own, regardless of what orders are issued by the government.”

Kurou nodded. “I can find him and confirm,” he offered, just a touch too eagerly. He was loyal to a fault, though, and honesty compelled him to rescind his hope of a liaison. “That’s not necessary, though. He knew. Last night, when he agreed to take on the Grey king, he already knew he would do so as a civilian king, not a military leader.”

“What makes you say that?” Shiro asked, not entirely sure he wanted to know.

Kurou shrugged, averting his gaze from Shiro’s in a manner of distancing that caused a pang of pain in the Silver king’s heart. “It explains why he was unusually sentimental… over a desk.”

It would be perfectly normal to pursue an explanation of that odd statement, but something told Shiro he was better off letting it go. Either it meant nothing, and asking was a waste of his time, or it meant something, and that was even worse.

“Shiro… What do you think of that scoundrel of a Blue clansman who joined the Greens?” Kurou asked suddenly, his eyes still staring off into a distance that stretched away from Shiro and towards the heart of Tokyo.

Fushimi Saruhiko. Shiro had his suspicions about that young man and his apparent defection, but Kurou most probably wouldn’t find any relief in them.

“I don’t know,” he said. “What does Ichigen-sama think?”

Perhaps the device was possessed. Perhaps Miwa Ichigen’s spirit had been electrolyzed into particles of energy that continued to exist as machinery and sound, and perhaps the former Colorless king was all-seeing and all-knowing in this mysterious state of existence.

The quote that Kurou’s questing fingers initiated was the very same one that had convinced the blood-seeking hound to sheathe his fangs and spare Isana Yashiro’s life until proof of innocence made the stay of execution permanent. “ _Do not judge the cold without first knowing the warmth of the sun._ ”

The look of dissatisfaction might mean Kurou didn’t understand the relevance that Shiro’s suspicions made clear to him. It might also mean that he had hoped for something more like a condemnation, thus affirming that his perceived rival for Munakata’s affections was unworthy.

Unable to resist planting just one seed, Shiro posed a question he knew he should keep to himself. “You’re the only one other than Fushimi-san who has served more than one king. What do you think? Would you be able to serve a third?”

The gaze that rolled back toward him was surprisingly emotionless. “Mishakuji Yukari,” he said.

Of course. Kurou was absolutely correct. Mishakuji Yukari now served his second king, as well.

“Shiro… If Ichigen-sama were alive… I don’t know if it would have been possible for me to leave his side for another king—but he’s gone now, and there is no question. You are my king. As long as you live, I could never bring myself to serve another.”

Gratitude welled up in Shiro with ruthless force. He would never know if Kurou would have chosen him over his former king but the precedent existed in Fushimi Saruhiko. Guiltily, he would like to believe that Kurou might have been drawn to him—the king he belonged to; belonged with—at the expense of Miwa Ichigen.

Strange, that he had never wondered if Kurou, who had now served two kings, might be tempted to leave him for a third, in Munakata Reisi. Kurou was his. He knew that as certainly as he knew he was in love.

And as certain as he was of that now, it mattered little. What did matter was what choices his clansmen would make in the coming days.

When the Dresden Slate was no more, what would become of their world? Would Neko still cling to him with innocent adoration? Would Kurou still stand doggedly at his side, whatever trouble he caused? …whatever change he proposed?

Knowing what he risked losing, could he really do what must be done?


	5. Chapter 5

He always smoked more frequently when the weather was cold. Munakata thrived in the cold. He had no need to pursue warmth, but there was a certain soothing sensation to the heat that crept down his throat and swept into his lungs as he took a long drag on the last cigarette tucked in with his own that had once been Mikoto’s brand. It was that fusion—that mingling of cold air and hot embers. It made him feel alive.

Dragging his gaze up, and up, and up the impossibly tall walls, he finally caught sight of the distant sliver of sky, raising the cigarette from his lips like a salute. He’d met Mikoto in an alley like this once. He’d come away with raw scratches that scabbed and pulled, bothering him for weeks. That had been the beginning of his bucket list. He’d scathingly ticked off “rough alley sex” on a checklist he mockingly created for himself… and it just kept growing. It had begun from a bitter place of self-deprecation but these days he took genuine amusement in it. Sex on his desk. Check. Fondle a ninja. Check. What new entertainments would he stumble across as a civilian?

“You let him down, Munakata Reisi.”

Face still upturned to the sky, Munakata’s eyes slid to the right. He was joyfully excited to find that Hirasaka had donned her fully masked garb—the ninja fantasy was much more endearing than that skimpy ensemble she had been parading about in yesterday.

If the choice to conceal her appearance indicated extra caution, he was hardly impressed. It was only natural in this vicinity. He, himself, had been hard pressed to slip around guards and other individuals in the area who might know his face. Perhaps he should ask if she had any recommendations for buying gear—he wouldn’t mind a ninja get-up for a disguise; not to mention Halloween. Hers was a little too JUNGLE for his tastes, though.

She shook out her pretty blond waves as she removed the helmet. “Did you hear me?”

The bitter disapproval of her expression brought him down to Earth somewhat at last. His eyes widened as she reached out and stole the cigarette from his lips, dropping it to the icy ground and stamping it out.

“Aa, I heard. Fushimi-kun has every right to be disappointed in me,” he responded, slipping his hands into his pockets and straightening up to survey her from the advantage of his height. “I’m more interested in why you seem to be.”

“I’m not here to chit-chat. Give me the USB and I’ll be on my way,” Hirasaka snapped.

She certainly was grouchy. “No USB,” he said simply. “You’ll relay my orders to Fushimi yourself.”

“No.” He waited her out. “Having direct knowledge puts me at risk. That’s not in my contract.”

He’d expected as much. “I already wired the payment to your account. Go on, take a moment to count the figures.” As she reluctantly pulled out her PDA to do just that, he forged ahead with his orders. “As of this moment, I want Fushimi on standby. The moment he hears of an attack on the surface facility, he is to hack into the security controls from the inside using the third method he outlined. His mission is to over-ride the security protocols and open up the base so that the Red and Silver clans can infiltrate.”

Hirasaka was contemplative, staring at the rather exorbitant sum of money she was now in possession of. “And the Blue?” she asked at last, challenging him with a stare that clearly said she was dissatisfied to be beholden to him.

“Sceptre 4 is beholden to the government. I have no say in their movements,” he said blandly.

“And the Blue clan?” Hirasaka reiterated in a tone equally bland and all the more critical for it.

He relented, feeling oddly relieved as the pressure seeped out of his shoulders. “I can only hope to have them at my back—but the plan will proceed regardless.”

“Chances of success—and of survival—will plummet without them,” Hirasaka commented, tucking away her PDA. “Is there anything else?”

“That last zero… It has a name.”

“Oh?”

“When he breaks into the system the Green king will be aware. Who do you think will be sent after Fushimi? What do you estimate are his chances of besting that opponent?”

“It could be Gojou Tsukuna. In which case Fushimi would be hard-pressed but he’d have a greater chance of survival than…” Hirasaka seemed to think about it for a moment. “Mishakuji Yukari could take him down with little trouble—but I wonder if he would.” Slowly, her eyes rose to Munakata’s and he didn’t like the hesitant waver in her manner before she spoke again. “He’s not in fighting condition,” she said.

“Mishakuji Yukari?”

“…Fushimi.”

“Tell me,” Munakata breathed, reading some of it in her eyes already. “What has he done?”

Hirasaka showed a strange squeamishness in the way she averted her gaze, but Munakata believed it was on Fushimi’s behalf, not her own. “Whatever it takes for his mission to succeed,” she said quietly.

Whatever it takes. Just as Munakata had ordered him.

“His body is the only chip he has to play, and he puts it on the table almost every day,” Hirasaka murmured, willing Munakata to understand.

He understood. He understood very well. Fushimi was bartering his body for information—and access. Doubtless, that was how he had gained the codes and system controls that were the foundation of this plan. Who was he sleeping with? Nagare himself?

Just the thought of it caused Munakata’s gut to churn. Nagare was little more than a living corpse. Fushimi couldn’t possibly…

“Mishakuji Yukari!” Hirasaka blurted all of a sudden, as if she had read the revulsion in him and couldn’t stand to leave it there. He hadn’t expected such consideration from her.

That explained her suggestion that Mishakuji Yukari might not go so far as to end Fushimi for his betrayal, but Munakata didn’t have the luxury of unfounded hopes. He doubted there was much emotion in whatever arrangement existed between his subordinate and the narcissistic swordsman.

“I understand that yours is not a combative ability,” Munakata said, seemingly changing the subject. “That’s why I will arrange for other backup but Hirasaka… Get him out. Alive.”

The woman puffed an incredulous breath out of her distinguished button of a nose. “You wasted your money, Blue king,” she told him.

It wasn’t anger, or even fury that reared in him—it was fear. He’d kept this sensation battened down tight since studying the intelligence Fushimi had risked his life to provide, and he had considered all of the options until coming to the regrettable decision that there was no path to success without grievous risk. Hirasaka was his trump card—the only one he truly believed could reliably bring Fushimi home safely. Now, the fear choked him and rose up in his throat as bile and almost made it to his eyes in the form of stinging tears.

“An exit strategy was already part of our original contract,” said the mercenary, with uncharacteristic softness. “I won’t let him die.”

A cold flame of vicious jealousy ignited in Munakata that hadn’t been there when he objectively pictured Fushimi screwing information out of Mishakuji Yukari. Self-sacrifice for the sake of the mission was not something Munakata wished upon his subordinate but he was well aware of the necessity of such tactics in such a high-stakes undercover mission. Life as a double agent was bad enough without clinging to bonds and morals.

Shameless promiscuity was another matter. It would seem that Fushimi had become very _entangled_ in JUNGLE, indeed, unless he missed his guess. If Hirasaka was implying that Mishakuji Yukari might have an interest in Fushimi beyond the physical, and if Fushimi was sleeping with this woman, as well, despite having no tactical use for such an affair…

No. Those were thoughts best reserved for the five minutes of contemplation he would indulge in before sleep—or perhaps ten now that he had less demands on his time. Right now, his priority was to ensure that the impending operation succeeded, and that Hirasaka fulfilled her duty towards securing Fushimi’s survival; her promise that she wouldn’t let him die.

“See that you don’t,” he said coldly, his eyes narrowed. “After all, the payment has been made. It would be _unprofessional_ for a hired hand such as yourself to renege.”

Petty. Mean. Spiteful. Oh yes, he was all of those things when jealousy made its home in him.

Hirasaka’s eyes flared with pride and loathing. “You’re right. I have a code. That’s more than I can say for you.”

Seething, Munakata felt the cold he loved seep into his bones, and just for now, he hated it. Perhaps that was why he was drawn to pay a visit to HOMRA, where the ghost of Suoh Mikoto might have left some lingering warmth for his chilled soul.

*

Fushimi felt sick.

Doubtless, he had not chosen this course lightly but Munakata had no way of knowing that the third and final strategy was one that would require a particular key. In order to fully penetrate the digital fortress that was JUNGLE’s backup server—where security controls were sealed up tight—Fushimi would need an abundance of Green power.

Green aura in vast quantity at short notice. He knew how to get it, alright. Mishakuji had spilled that particular secret during Fushimi’s very first seductive entrapment.

_A high, breathy exhalation of a moan resounded as Mishakuji’s fingers dug into the back of Fushimi’s skull and he rammed his hips up without an ounce of restraint. “That’s it,” he moaned. “Astounding, that whore’s throat of yours.”_

_His manic laughter (given an unstable edge by merit of the lust running rampant in him) pealed and clanged in Fushimi’s ears and he fought the impulse to gag. Swallow. Just like gulping down scalding coffee in the morning. Just keep swallowing around it._

_“Oh my, you really are divine.”_

_Hips bucking and sounding out his pleasure shamelessly, Mishakuji came hard. Fushimi did gag then, but he was caught tight; his head grasped in the swordsman’s hand, his nose crushed against lilac-scented silken pubes, and his mouth and throat stretched wide. As Mishikuji’s cock wilted, so Fushimi’s struggle eased._

_Gasping for breath, he fell to his hands—already on his knees. He swore he could still feel a great lump in his throat. Internal bruising, most likely._

_“Cheer up,” crooned a delighted Mishakuji. “If you do that for Nagare, he’ll bestow so much aura on you, you won’t know what to do with it.”_

_“Is that how you got so strong?” Fushimi rasped._

_Mishakuji laughed and reached forward to pull Fushimi’s head up by the hair—vindictively snagging it near the roots to incite sharp pain and watery vision. “I was already strong,” he said. “Miwa Ichigen made me strong. Nagare simply filled me with the Green light of manipulation.”_

_“Did you really…?”_

_“Did I screw that living corpse? Ugh. Of course not!” His revulsion was evident. “But even Nagare deserves a beautiful vision every now and then,” he hummed. “And there is no vision more beautiful than all the light in the universe bursting in rapid pulses of light from out of a black void before one’s very eyes.”_

_Fushimi prayed that Mishakuji would never expand the borders of his art to include the writing of crude smut. What an overblown metaphor._

As it turned out, blowing Nagare was just as much fun as Fushimi had anticipated. Almost as much fun as crawling naked through the hold of a trawler laden with slimy, wet, dead-eyed fish as far as the eye could see and the nose could smell. Almost. At least Nagare was pleasant to look at, even if his eyes were dull for all the power that gleamed in them, and he was strangely devoid of any scent at all.

The power thrumming through the Green king on the merit of his connection to the Dresden Slate, filled him with life and energy that made him almost unrecognizable from his slumbering form. A corpse was still a corpse, though, and just because he could get it up by merit of that power didn’t mean there was warm blood flowing through him. The thick and rigid length of Nagare’s dick brought meaning to the phrase: As cold as death.

It was Fushimi’s job to create a semblance of warmth, and since he couldn’t literally rub life into that cold, dead flesh, he had to go about it in another way. He spared no kisses, wasted no light, loving touches, and was artful with his words.

“I never knew where I belonged,” he said, trailing the backs of his fingers down Nagare’s jaw and then swooping in for a thorough kiss. His lips trailed butterfly light touches down the Green king’s neck and his fingers fluttered along the skinny flats of a soft, white belly. “It always felt so wrong but I get it now. Even when I got involved with JUNGLE before, it was different. No aura. The way your aura fills me is unlike anything I’ve ever felt. It’s like my senses expand and I can taste the world around me on my skin!”

Sliding to his knees, he looked up at Nagare’s body—thin as a skeleton and curled over in his wheelchair to touch Fushimi’s cheek. Not that he needed the wheelchair with the power pulsing through his body but the fit of it was comfortable to his emaciated frame.

“Let me taste you,” Fushimi breathed, allowing his eyes to flood with all of the heartfelt affection he could imagine. Had anyone ever made him feel like that?

Perhaps there was one man… one king…

Fushimi loathed expressing weakness, even in the confines of his own mind, but this was not a trial he could overcome while holding onto such a pointless sentiment as pride. For Nagare to believe him, he had to be honest to himself, and that meant admitting that he was ludicrously in love with Munakata Reisi. Just for this one moment. Just as long as he needed that earnest shimmer of true affection in his eyes.

He held it a moment too long; the love still swelling in him as he darted his tongue out to slide over the tip of a block of ice. An instant later, he dropped his eyes, hoping his disgust was not as evident as it felt.

Idly, as he massaged Nagare’s cock with his tongue and caressed with the whole of his mouth, he dwelled on the prospect that it was likely Nagare’s only other like experience had been with Mishakuji Yukari. How that mad diva had brought himself to do this, Fushimi couldn’t even fathom, but there was reward. Still cupping his cheek, Nagare sent a steady tendril of power into Fushimi even as his harsh breaths rose to a peak.

In otherwise uncanny silence, Nagare came. His lashes fluttered on his cheeks and easy ripples threaded through his abdomen. There was no seed, only power, and for a time, Fushimi was drunk on it.

*

People often speak of fight or flight as if these two instincts are an irrefutable set; a binding principle of the universe. What most people do not know is that there is a third instinct. It only becomes apparent when flight is impossible and fight is inadvisable.

Submission.

Take rape, for example. People to whom fight or flight is all there is and ever has been will vehemently deny that a victim of rape can find pleasure in the act. For rapists, evidence of pleasure means that their victim has become amenable, and thus there is no rape. For victims, they were at fault for allowing themselves to experience any hint of physical pleasure, turning rape into a consensual act by fight or flight logic. For the rest, there can only be doubt. Was there ever any rape at all?

But there are those for whom the ordeal of being forced is so terrifying that the complex beast that is the human brain provides a way out when flight fails and fight will only make it that much worse.

The third survival instinct may apply in various scenarios, but it is the rape scenario with which Mishakuji Yukari is intimately familiar.

A beautiful child with no means of self-defense, he was well acquainted with it by the time Miwa Ichigen took him in, rescuing him from a fate equal to death but made minimally preferable by the advent of submission and the implausible phenomenon of pleasure derived from it. Under Miwa Ichigen's instruction, submission came off the table and flight became ever-more undesirable as fight became an ever-more viable option.

Thus, when the benevolent savior fell to temptation and began to look on the ever-more beautiful Yukari with eyes not unlike those of his childhood predators—when the man swore never to hurt him but inadvertently did so anyway—Yukari chose flight and bitterly regretted his weakness. So he returned with the intention to fight.

Ah, but there was another child. One who worshipped him as much as he did their mutual benefactor. That this child could barely last three seconds against Yukari proved that he would be helpless to fight against Miwa Ichigen when the day came and the benevolent master's predatory instincts were awoken by growing beauty. For the boy was beautiful. And he would never consider flight from this adored man.

Never again would Yukari's beauty be a thing that caused suffering for its delicacy. It would become his natural defense; a trap to lure and thus reveal those of predatory nature to be cut down before that third instinct could be awoken again in Yukari or any others.

So Yukari turned his sword on the man who had taught him swordsmanship. He turned his aggression on the man who had saved him from those dark inclinations of others. He would not submit again. Not as he had before.

And Kurou... Kurou would never know the necessity of submission.

At first, Yukari had thought Fushimi Saruhiko was one of those poor creatures lured into the trap of his beauty. He had soon come to understand that the contrary young man thought he was setting a different kind of trap. Yukari didn't mind. The world of free beings he looked forward to seeing unleashed was one in which Saruhiko would be as free to futilely try and play Nagare as to become their companion in truth. What made Yukari hope for that latter was the revelation that Saruhiko was one of his kind.

Unlike Yukari, Saruhiko had chosen to flee his predators when he could submit no longer. The result was that, unlike Yukari, he had never quite lost his instinct for submission. A small part of Yukari hated him for that lingering weakness. The rest of him recognized Saruhiko's potential to free himself of his shackles as Yukari had done, and longed to awaken fight in him strong enough to overcome. For there was fight in Saruhiko, and plenty of it, but he refrained, falling back on submission; even as Yukari had done when Saruhiko's fingers had come down on his neck in a glorious assertion of his latent fighting nature.

So it was that Yukari opened himself up to Saruhiko and gave in to the dual natures within him whenever they were alone. He was drawn by the honeyed voice laced with poison and eyes like hard blue diamond, magnified and made to sparkle by some trick of thick lenses. The frames that surrounded those eyes were part of the allure—like scrolling black iron surrounding an intricate painting and confining its intense color apart from the lesser hues of the outside world.

If only Saruhiko would do something about that messy hair. Growing it out would certainly do the trick. Yukari could easily imagine running his hands through soft brown tresses and weaving thin plaits in here and there to trail over exceedingly pale skin almost as effervescent as his own. There was much he could achieve with Fushimi Saruhiko, if only the fool would choose him over that bothersome Blue clan that still had its untrimmed nails snagged in bits of hair and flesh best served by freedom.

The same could not be said of dear Kurou. As much as Yukari longed to take his so-called “little brother” under his wing and nurture the perfection that had yet to bloom, he could see that his hand was unnecessary. Perhaps as a goal, as a rival to overcome, he could provide the impetus for those buds to stretch out towards the sun—but that sun was the sparkling warmth of the Silver king, beside whom Kurou had begun to blossom into a very fine flower indeed.

It was a lonely reality. If anyone could appreciate the bitter-sweet aesthetic of it, Yukari suspected it was Saruhiko. They could really be something, he and Saruhiko, if they only had the chance.

Whether that chance would come or not, Yukari was sure he was about to find out as a beam of myriad color and glorious light exploded into the sky, taking his breath away. Freedom was at hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh man. What have I doooone?  
> Yukari isn't supposed to be so human! He's meant to be a tool of conflict and a pretty partner to keep Fushimi occupied while angsting over an unreachable Munakata.  
> He's not supposed to have a background! Or plans! Or feelings!
> 
> Whoops.
> 
> This is all because I read the Dog & Cat side story. Sigh.  
> Ideas are dangerous.


	6. Chapter 6

Twenty-four hours seems like a very short and insignificant amount of time, but to one who had expected to be dead by the most recent—and long-passed—sunrise, it was an eternity. So very much had happened, and then… so very little.

Fushimi had done his duty. He had sucked off the living dead in exchange for the power he needed to complete his betrayal of yet another clan and open the gate. He had invited the Red and Silver clans right inside the Green fortress. He had fought for his life—and alongside Misaki of all people!—and then, with some closure to make things feel right, he had been prepared to succumb to his wounds and inevitable death.

Rescued by Hirasaka at the bidding of Munakata… Honestly, it was both humbling and a little humiliating. He might have been tempted to have the woman report back “Your princess is in another castle,” but he was too injured and too damn weary to swing it so he let her carry him right up to the Blue king like a real damsel in distress.

Thankfully, he had succeeded in putting his expectations on hold. He had not thought to survive, so he had not considered what might come after. He had not hoped for a formal commendation and a slew of salutes from his former-yet-present comrades. He had not hoped for Munakata to pull him into safe, caring arms and thank him for returning safely. He had not hoped to be forgiven, praised, or welcomed.

It was lucky that he had entertained no such hopes, since none of those things came to pass.

Instead, he found himself handcuffed to a bed and under guard, like a criminal. A wounded one, at that. The medical facility that was his prison belonged to the cell ward of Sceptre 4. His wounds were treated humanely and compassionately. His person was given no such consideration.

“Damn it, Hidaka! How long are you going to keep me here?”

No response. If he was going to look so damned cut up about it, the least he could do would be to say a single word—an apology, a murmured consolation, an insult; anything!

“This is a mistake!” Fushimi raved, perhaps an hour or more after his last outburst. “I’m not meant to be in here!”

After another bout of silence and uncomfortable glances from the sulking officer, Fushimi tried another tactic. “Look, I’m sorry I yelled. It’s just… This _is_ a mistake. I’m not a traitor. Not… this time. The captain can tell you-”

“Acting Supervisor Akiyama ordered your arrest. If you are referring to Former Captain Munakata Reisi…”

At that moment, the door opened, and Fushimi seethed inside. He was finally getting Hidaka to open up!

“What about Munakata Reisi?” asked the man himself in a silken tone that inspired a tingle of dread at the base of Fushimi’s spine.

Judging by the wild cast to Hidaka’s eyes, he was even more drastically affected. “Ca… Munakata-san. This ward is off-”

“I have a letter of permission from the prime minister himself. If you would like to peruse it?”

Hidaka quickly took the proffered letter and his eyes widened in shock then filled—surprisingly—with tears. “Captain!”

“Not until tomorrow,” Munakata said kindly. “However, I have been granted permission to speak with Fushimi in private regarding a top secret matter initiated during my term as captain of Sceptre 4. If you would please give us the room…”

“Yes, sir!”

The response was clearly that of subordinate to superior, and Hidaka cast one relieved look towards Fushimi before slipping out the door.

“Took you long enough,” Fushimi complained. “Can you un-cuff me, please?”

“I’m afraid I do not have the key,” Munakata replied, a small, irritating smile twisting the corners of his lips.

“Then call Hidaka back in here-”

“Fushimi.” Munakata’s eyes were suffused with warmth as he moved to the bed and sat down carefully on the edge of it. He folded his hands in his lap with utter propriety and gazed down at Fushimi as if he could hardly believe they were both alive. In fact, that was likely the case. “Mishakuji Yukari and Gojou Tsukuna have yet to be apprehended,” he said, completely contrary to his kind expression. Fushimi waited, but Munakata also seemed to be waiting. The result was a game of chicken which Fushimi smugly won when his former captain finally asked, “How do you feel about that?”

“What’s it got to do with me?” Fushimi asked, grudgingly considering the possibility that Hirasaka had betrayed his secrets after all.

“You must have grown close to your targets, by necessity,” said Munakata. “I am asking if you helped to facilitate their escape.”

“My mission—as you well know—was to gather intelligence on JUNGLE and its upper echelons and then to _facilitate_ the invasion of the premises. It was never my job to apprehend Mishakuji or Gojou, or any other members of JUNGLE. It’s none of my business what happened to them after I fulfilled my mission—unless, that is, my new mission will be to hunt them down and capture them.”

“I am afraid that won’t be possible,” Munakata told him. “For the time being, you are a prisoner of Sceptre 4, charged with defection, terrorism, and a whole host of other things—I’m sure someone will read you the list in its entirety soon enough.”

A cold feeling settled into Fushimi’s chest. It had the distinct sensation of hatred mixed with other unpleasant concepts such as fear and betrayal. “You’re being reinstated tomorrow,” he said calmly. “You’ll get me out of here and reinstate me, in turn, to my own rank and uniform.”

“I’m afraid not. Fushimi-kun… There was no record of your mission—by your own design; only my word, yours, and that of Hiraska Douhan.”

That was exactly what Fushimi had been afraid he would say. He closed his eyes and thought about it rationally for a moment. “Too much red tape. Hirasaka, then,” he guessed. “You’ll send her for me and while all that red tape is being shredded, we’ll hunt down Mishakuji and Gojou together.”

“Hirasaka Douhan has been incarcerated and is being held in solitary confinement at present.”

“They can’t!” Fushimi exclaimed, lunging upward until the cuff caught and he was brought heavily back down. Closing his eyes against a wave of agony that overcame him in spite of the solid performance of whatever painkillers had been prescribed, he took two slow, deep breaths. “Without Hirasaka, I would never have been able to accomplish my mission. She had as much of a hand in destroying the Dresden Slate as any of us.”

“And she has been paid accordingly,” Munakata noted. The light buoyance of his tone mocked Fushimi for his rash self-infliction of pain. “However, whatever actions a mercenary might take for monetary compensation do not absolve her of her previous crimes. I’m afraid she is also in possession of too much confidential information to be allowed near other prisoners, or guards without clearance—meaning all of them—so for the time being, she will remain in solitary confinement.”

“This is insane,” Fushimi snarled, realizing that the hero’s greeting he had neither expected nor hoped for was nothing short of a fool’s delusion. Who was this man? How could he sit there and let those who had… and let Fushimi suffer like this? How could he abandon someone who had been willing to sacrifice life itself for his noble cause? How could he abandon someone who had sacrificed so much more than even that and still… still loved him? Did he truly feel nothing at all for Fushimi? Was that all just a delusion as well? Maybe Fushimi was an idiot who deserved disillusionment but he wasn’t the only one at stake here. “The only reason Hirasaka was anywhere near that place, hanging around when things went to shit, was because _you_ hired her to rescue me!”

“Me?” Munakata asked with a convincing look of surprise. “I did no such thing. According to Hirasaka Douhan, your rescue was negotiated under the terms of your original contract.”

“What? No. I…”

Did he just imagine the genuine moment of conflict in Munakata’s otherwise stern and unforgiving gaze?

“Regardless, Hirasaka will be tried as a terrorist and a hired criminal.” Finally, Munakata’s demeanor softened and he patted Fushimi’s hand reassuringly. “Your freedom and reinstatement will be realized after her trial. As for getting you out of here... The first thing I will do after regaining control of Sceptre 4 will be to have you relocated. I promise, you will be held under the best conditions within my power.”

That was a small relief. Fushimi had no choice but to accept it for now. If Munakata was working on getting him out of this situation, he would surely do the same for Hirasaka once they were on more solid footing.

“Captain…”

“I have not yet been reinstated to that title,” Munakata said quietly. He leaned in—closer than Fushimi would have expected. It inspired a little heat and a little excitement but no expectation—anything but expectation. “Fushimi-kun… I missed you.”

Not even when Munakata’s lips were mere molecules from his own did Fushimi have any expectation that he was about to be kissed. That was why it came as a pleasant surprise when thin but dexterous lips engaged his own in a playful kiss with just a touch of heat and a dash of honesty.

The words muttered at the moment of their parting filled Fushimi with a ray of hope (one he had learned to stifle for his own protection) that wouldn’t be denied on this occasion.

“Someday soon, I’ll show you just how grateful I am that you are safe and back where you belong.”

*

Munakata was fully aware that jealousy was a horridly unbecoming trait. Regardless, Fushimi’s clear concern over _that_ _ninja woman_ brought out the worst in him. He was even more ashamed by spite, however, and so he resolved to put Fushimi’s mind at ease and to find a solution that would see her absolved and freed. Well, mostly freed. Ok, probably not freed at all, but working under the jurisdiction of Sceptre 4 for a decent wage would not be all that uncomfortable for her. It would take all the strings Munakata could contrive to pull, but he did owe her that much.

He really had believed her when she informed him of Fushimi’s exit strategy. That was why he had been unconcerned when he received a refund of exactly one 0’s worth of payment. A true professional, indeed, to accept only that sum which was appropriate to the job.

What it came down to in the end was that Hiraska’s rescue of Fushimi was personal—not professional. She had done it for her own purposes, and that, Munakata found difficult to accept.

That, he knew, was his own cross to bear. He would endeavor to do so with dignity from now on.

Mishakuji Yukari was another story altogether. Not one hour had passed since Fushimi’s transfer from the hospitalized cell within the Sceptre 4 compound to a (scandalously) luxurious secure apartment at the Imperial Hotel (because Munakata had informed the prime minister in no uncertain terms that he would follow correct procedure but he would not allow an officer who had put so much on the line for the sake of his mission to be treated like a criminal). One hour’s procrastination and Fushimi might very well be in the hands of that nefarious villain right now.

The break-in had been insultingly blunt and to-the-point. Sticks of dynamite thrown through walls in a straight line to the very room in which Fushimi was being held. Such speed that only a handful officers had been able to respond to delay their advance, and all were now dead or—as in the case of Benzai—in critical condition.

Thwarted by Fushimi’s very recent absence, the pair had cut a hasty retreat but the combination of Zenjou and Awashima lying in wait at the only possible point of exit (the very hole they had blasted their way in through) had been effective enough to an extent. Not effective enough for Munakata who viciously wished he had not assigned himself to the relocation squad and thus been halfway across town at the time of the infiltration.

Gojou Tsukuna was in custody. Mishakuji Yukari was on the run.

The irritatingly young former J-Ranker of JUNGLE had proudly boasted that their mission had been to terminate the traitor, Fushimi. This instantly went a long way to appeasing the target’s former colleagues in terms of his questionable loyalty for which Munakata was grateful. However, he did not believe it.

Gojou Tsukuna had been strategically sacrificed. Mishakuji Yukari’s objective was not Fushimi’s death—he meant to steal Fushimi away from the Blue clan.

Hirasaka, the Blue king could forgive. Mishakuji Yukari, on the other hand, would soon learn just how unforgiving Munakata Reisi could be.

*

It could be worse. Hell, he could be cuffed to a bed, subjected to hospital food, and deprived of color even in wallpaper and bed sheets.

“Can I have a computer?”

“So you can hack a system you know like the back of your hand and do something reckless like, say, organize the escape of a certain inmate? Certainly not.”

“Fine.” That was fair. This hotel room—apartment really—was incredibly comfortable. He had a kitchen, a couch and television, a big fluffy bed, an extravagant bath-tub, and even a bookshelf stocked with all the classics. It was technologically bereft but still paradise as far as confinement went. “Look, captain-”

“Fushimi-kun, for now—for just a little while—you are not an officer under my command and I am not your captain.” Munakata’s weary tone gave Fushimi pause. The captain was seated on the couch with a small bottle of cognac and two glasses waiting innocently on the coffee table before him. When had he extricated those from the stocked cabinet? “How about we dispense with the formalities and you come and sit beside me. Let’s have a drink and talk like equals.”

Was it strange of Fushimi to feel suspicious? Since when did the captain of a militarized faction talk like equals with a prisoner accused of terrorism?

Besides…

“You’re still my king.”

“I can live with that.”

Damn him for looking so content.

“But not the other?”

Fushimi approached cautiously, hovering near the arm of the couch.

“Not at this moment. There are things I wish to discuss with you that would not be appropriate subject matter between a captain and his subordinate. Please, sit.”

It was easier than he thought to comply. Sitting beside Munakata like that—like equals; neither in uniform and neither on duty—it was easier than he thought.

A couple of days ago, he had been surprised by the first group in a string of visitors; all appearing after their various shifts, bringing flowers, chocolate, magazines, handheld game consoles (which he had coldly rejected thinking of that annoying twerp Gojou), and a bouquet of apologies, promises, and well-wishes.

Fushimi hadn’t known just how much the good opinion of his colleagues meant to him until he had it back. Hidaka’s bashful hug and pathetically emotional card had actually brought a pair of tears shimmering to the surface, which he had had to wipe away while facing the window as he vocally degraded the stupid dork’s spelling.

He was honestly touched that his fellow officers were willing to overlook the lack of proof so far and believe in him again, but he was also still hurt that they had needed confirmation in the form of an assassination attempt to do so.

Only Awashima had been able to look him in the eyes and say, “It’s a good thing I’m rumored not to have a heart—because if I did, it would never have believed you could betray us.” Frankly, Fushimi hadn’t been sure if she meant to imply that she did have a heart and it hadn’t believed what her head told her, or that she didn’t have a heart and thus had never doubted his betrayal. His confusion was dispelled somewhat when she proved the existence of her heart by blinking back tears and handed him a small decorative hanging painted with the symbol of Sceptre 4 and the words written in blue calligraphy: Welcome Home.

“I caught her making it a week after you disappeared,” Kusanagi told him later, having found the hanging dangling from a curtain hook at the window when he visited as a cleared representative of the joint forces involved in the recent operation.

Because Fushimi had never expected, hoped, or believed he would see any of these people ever again, he was at a loss as to how to deal with them. Worse, was the man seated beside him now, saying he wanted to talk and then silently pouring them each a glass of cognac and not saying a damn word.

“Nothing _feels_ right, anymore,” Fushimi blurted in frustration. “I don’t know how to talk to you—or anyone else. I’m not the same person anymore… I don’t know how to be that person anymore.”

“You’re certainly _more_ talkative, so far, for someone who doesn’t know how to talk.” Munakata held out the second glass, nudging it against Fushimi’s hand when he neglected to take it.

“I’m rambling,” Fushimi muttered bitterly, taking the glass because it was less trouble than rejecting it.

“Hardly.” Munakata’s glass bumped lightly against his and the captain took a mouthful, releasing an appreciative sigh. He was quiet for a short time, contemplating the liquid, but Fushimi could sense that he had more to say. “I think you’ve fallen out of touch with yourself, somewhat. Your silences have always been born of confidence—the confidence that you don’t need to explain yourself to others because everything you need to know is up here.” Fushimi’s eyes slid to the right as two of Munakata’s fingers pressed against his temple. He could almost feel the captain’s lips on his again, the sensation still as fresh as the moment it had happened. “In your head. We lesser beings, we talk to relieve our doubts.” The back of Munakata’s hand slid down Fushimi’s cheek and then fell away. “Just this once, you should give it a try. Tell me what happened to you in JUNGLE.”

Fushimi looked into the potent liquor that sloshed as he swirled the little glass. Then he plunked it down on the glass surface of the table and sat back, relaxing into the plush gold velvet. He closed his eyes and envisioned all of the things he had done during his covert mission that he was ashamed of.

He had hurt people—for points. He had stolen—for points. He had bribed a politician—for points.

He had lied, cheated, and fucked. He had compromised his self-respect in ways that he could never forgive.

It had seemed so easy at first, seducing Mishakuji Yukari. The act itself was easy enough. He could live with the twisted nature of their sadistic rutting. What he found more difficult to live with was the awareness that Mishakuji knew exactly what he was doing and allowed it anyway—because there was more to it than raw physicality for him. Fushimi hadn’t succeeded only in seducing Mishakuji’s body, he had actually provoked an unexpected emotional connection, and that made him feel dirty. What he had done was use a man who had begun to care for him—to some extent, at least. It was despicable.

Nagare was another festering wound. He felt sick just thinking about it.

Picking and choosing, Fushimi chose to give in sooner rather than later, and related what he thought most relevant and convincing. He admitted to sleeping with Mishakuji when Munakata pushed; but the true source of his guilt he secreted away.

He would never speak of Nagare. Never. Not to Munakata or to anyone else.

If the captain suspected that certain details had been withheld, he did not show it. He simply pulled Fushimi into his arms, leaning them both back against the arm of the couch and listening intently. The fingers of his left hand crept between those of Fushimi’s, separating when the subject of Mishakuji came up. They stilled, then crept into motion, tracing a pattern on Fushimi’s skin as he tried to coax out the truth.

“There were things in the intelligence you gave me that could only have come from another J-Rank member…” “Missions like this… sometimes we have to compromise our morals and do things not necessarily in our nature.” “I know who I would have chosen if it came to sexual subterfuge. There’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

“What if I’m not ashamed?” Fushimi had ventured. “What if I’m afraid of hurting someone? What if I’m afraid they won’t want me after-”

Responding to the fingers on his chin, Fushimi had turned his head and been rewarded with a fairly forceful kiss that endangered both sets of glasses as they clinked and scraped. “I forgive you,” Munakata whispered against his lips.

Fushimi blinked, leaning into the kiss a little, then pulling back in rebellion. “You forgive me?” He shifted his body, turning to sit on top of Munakata’s legs which were stretched out crookedly on the couch. The thickly bandaged hole in his thigh protested but held. He ignored it. “You don’t get to forgive me,” he said. Encouraged by the refreshing confusion he saw in Munakata’s eyes, Fushimi placed his hands on the captain’s shoulders and pinned him solidly to the tall arm of the couch. Midnight blue on golden velvet. “You sent me in there and everything I did, I did for you. I didn't compromise my morals, I threw them out the fucking window! When Mishakuji promised to show me around the underground tunnels if I gave him what he wanted, I licked his ass and choked on his cock—for you. When-”

Munakata moved fast when he finally came to his senses. He firmly cupped Fushimi’s mouth in his palm, bringing an early end to the impending stream of invective. “I understand,” he said quietly, letting those two words hang for a moment. “I don’t want you to say anymore because I can see how much it is hurting _you_ to try and hurt me this way. I’m sorry. What I asked of you is unforgivable, and only more so because I know how you feel, and I always did.” Slowly, the muting hand withdrew until it was only the raw honesty in Munakata’s eyes that stayed Fushimi’s tongue. His head tilted slightly to the left and he sighed with open regret. “I said what I thought you needed to hear, but that wasn’t it at all, was it? As you say, I have no right offering my forgiveness. It should be I who begs forgiveness of you. But it’s ok if you can’t give that—as long as you forgive yourself.”

Running his hands down Fushimi’s shoulders and biceps and then back up again, Munakata then gently guided him back onto the other end of the couch and then stood, adjusting his clothes and avoiding eye contact in a very uncommon show of modesty. Fushimi was left bewildered and disliked the feeling of dissatisfaction as the captain deliberately put space between them.

“Don’t you dare tell me my feelings are one-sided,” Fushimi warned, his voice a heavily serrated knife-edge.

Straightening from pointlessly placing the empty glass and the full one neatly to either side of the bottle on the table, Munakata met Fushimi’s eyes with solid truth but little emotion. “On the contrary, they are very much reciprocated,” Munakata told him. “Which is why I must excuse myself before I give in to jealousy, and you to anger. Coming to terms with all that has been said and done will take some time, on both of our parts—but the beauty of this current arrangement is that we have the luxury of doing so without the stigma of rank influencing our thoughts and words.”

Fushimi refused to dwell on any of that spiel while Munakata still stood before him, so he bit his tongue and simply waited for the man to leave. His anticipation was premature, however, as Munakata had one more thing to impart.

“You should know; officially, you will not be vindicated until Hirasaka is tried and her testimony heard, followed by your own court martial—all theatre, I assure you. However, Gojou Tsukuna’s confession of an assassination attempt and marking of you as a traitor has lent enough credence to your official statement that I was able to have Hirasaka Douhan transferred to similar lodgings. While not quite so extravagant, her level of comfort is greatly improved.”

Putting aside Munakata’s earlier confession for later dissection, Fushimi also set aside his pride. “Thank you,” he said without difficulty. “I appreciate it.”

*

Leaning heavily against the wall of the elevator and shaking with a disturbing combination of need and regret, Munakata marveled at how much easier it had been to deal with the concept of Fushimi in compact five-minute windows. How could there still be so much _complication_ festering between them even with rank removed and inhibitions beginning to strip away?

His own jealousy of Hirasaka Douhan and loathing of Mishakuji Yukari were only the tip of the iceberg. He hadn’t even stopped to consider that sleeping with Mishakuji might have been difficult—painful, even, in both a physical and emotional sense—for Fushimi. Or that he himself might be seen as the root cause of that pain. There was still so much Fushimi was not ready to confess to him and that he was not ready to hear but he had to know, because whatever they were, they were his sins, too. More his, than Fushimi’s, if he was honest with himself.

What Fushimi would never understand was that his confinement was not a punishment; it was a sabbatical. Fushimi needed time to heal, and Munakata needed to be the one to give him that, even if he was painted as the bad guy for it.

It wasn’t at all easy to deny Fushimi, though. Not his freedom, nor his unspoken demand for more than questionable kisses and challenging talk.

Easy or not, Munakata would do just that, until Fushimi believed in him again. Until Fushimi believed in himself again. Then, they would be able to overcome whatever other challenges might present, such as Fushimi’s restored rank or the specter of Suoh Mikoto that yet hovered unacknowledged over their shoulders.

One complication at a time.


	7. Chapter 7

Neko was frantic. Kurou was decidedly the opposite.

They had been through this before, searching fruitlessly for their king who was nowhere to be found. This time was different, though—something that Neko didn’t understand. Shiro would not abandon them again. If he was alive.

Kurou hoped and prayed that he was alive, but he knew that searching was pointless. Shiro would come back to them if he could. The only thing for it was to wait, even if it meant waiting until the day he died.

Meanwhile, Neko would not be cooped up long before dashing out into the school grounds in cat form and zipping about the campus, then the island, and eventually the greater city, desperate from some sign or hint of their master. More often than not, she ended up in HOMRA territory, seeking comfort in the Reds and in Anna as she had done in the past.

Kurou had never fit in with the Reds but he knew there was one other place he could go to feel a little solace—and he refused himself the luxury. Running to the Blues, meant running to Munakata. Would the Blue king invite him to join Sceptre 4 again with the possibility of Shiro’s eternal passing? If he did, would Kurou accept? To work alongside his lover, no longer conflicted… But he would be conflicted. It would forever feel like a betrayal of his one true king—and that wasn’t the only complication.

Thus, Kurou remained in the dorm room that felt small and lonely without Shiro to give it heart. He made meals for three and tidied, trained, and spent a great deal of time contriving either new messes to clean or new techniques to master just to keep himself busy. They had pulled some strings and taken full advantage of Neko’s lingering strain powers to keep this room for themselves in case Shiro returned to it, arranging it so that the boy who wore Shiro’s face was bumped next door where they could keep an eye on him.

Occasionally, when Neko wasn’t around to work her magic, Kurou had to deal with a confused Hieda Tooru wandering in through the unlocked door, or—more recently since Kurou had gotten fed up with the intrusions—banging on the locked door and demanding to be let in or crying that his key didn’t work. Depending on his present frame of mind, Hieda had been dealt with in a variety of ways. The easy way was to convince him he’d simply gotten the room number wrong, or shuffle him back to his own room so fast he didn’t have time to look at the numbers. The hard way was knocking him out and tying him up until Neko returned to “fix” his memories, which was becoming a more frequent occurrence and more and more difficult for her.

Thus, when a sharp knock on the door startled Kurou from meditation, he decided to ignore it, at least for a while. Eventually, frustration would mount and he wouldn’t be able to put it off any longer but-

“Yatogami-san?”

Munakata.

Kurou was on his feet, standing in the open doorway before he could remind himself he had decided to stay away from the Blue king.

*

Munakata stared down at the dumb-stuck young man he had clearly caught off guard with his sudden visit. A thread of guilt twisted in him as he realized how cruel it had been to put off this visit for so long. Yatogami must be suffering terribly, not knowing the whereabouts of his king—again. Not to mention, he must have been at least somewhat concerned for Munakata and his failing Sword of Damocles during the JUNGLE raid. At least, so Munakata presumed as strong, lithe arms wrapped about his frame and a tear-wet cheek rubbed against his shoulder.

He held Yatogami in return and let his lover process. In fact, he did a little of that himself.

“As you can see, I’m just fine,” he whispered, stroking Yatogami’s hair.

“I know. I heard. I just…”

“Let’s go inside,” Munakata suggested.

His intention in coming to the school during the remainder of the daylight hours and visiting Yatogami in his dorm had been to keep things congenial—perhaps to talk and learn how the Silver clansmen were coping, or to find them a purpose if they seemed to be lacking. Clearly, the latter was true of Yatogami, if not of the cat-girl who was no doubt searching for her king at this very moment.

However, Yatogami seemed to have plenty of purpose the moment the door closed behind them. He was on Munakata so fast there was no time for a proper greeting. Clothes littered the entranceway and the kitchen by the time they made it to the main living area, and practically tripped and fell onto the bed.

The crackling tension and prideful finesse that usually permeated their coupling was nowhere to be found as Yatogami kissed, bit, and bucked, sweeping Munakata up into his ravishing frenzy. It was easy to get carried away after all the difficulties of late. It was so very easy to immerse himself in something known and treasured. Perhaps that was Yatogami’s logic as well—if he retained such a capacity.

There came a point when Munakata had the black dog pinned face down under him and exquisite heat crept grudgingly around his swollen member and he consciously made the decision that logic could be damned, giving instinct the reins. This position was a first for them—and quite possibly a last—but it was appropriate to the primal lust that had hold of them both. Stretched out on the mattress, Yatogami ground his hips frantically while Munakata’s pistoned recklessly, his head hanging near his lover’s neck, allowing him to inhale the scents of sweat and need with every breath.

When his arms and knees buckled to the sound of a groan as orgasmic bliss stole his strength, he rolled and pulled Yatogami with him, reaching down that slim body and curling his hand about a length ready to burst. Several pumps and Yagotami did just that, arching viciously and then flopping back against him with the thwack of flesh colliding. They both lay there, panting and blank of mind until the cool wind gusting through the window brought them back to their senses.

Yatogami gathered himself, turning and whispering “Reisi,” before initiating a short, lazy kiss, then rising to pull a robe about his frame.

Munakata watched him move—so efficient in his motions yet also elegant as efficiency would allow. He gladly took the light blanket offered him and settled it over his shoulders, sitting up against the wall.

Belatedly, he realized that this bed belonged to the Silver king. He wondered what Adolf. K. Weisman might have to say about that if he lived. When Yatogami returned to his side holding a pair of mugs and pressed against the crack between arm and body until Munakata held him, he decided he didn’t really care. He was here. Weisman wasn’t.

“What was that all about?” he asked at last, blowing on the surface of the tea he now hefted in one hand—the other arm wrapped around his little lover.

He’d contemplated letting it alone, but if he didn’t look out for Yatogami now, who else would?

Taking a skip of the scalding liquid, Yatogami took his time before answering. “I thought you were saying goodbye,” he said. “That night, in your office… There was something so final in your manner… I thought I was ok with it.”

“But you weren’t.”

“Not yet,” Yatogami whispered, turning just slightly so that they could see into each other’s eyes. “I know what this is, but I’m not ready to let go of it yet… Just like you aren’t ready to let go of that desk of yours.”

Munakata couldn’t help it. He laughed, full-throated and with genuine amusement.

Yatogami’s shake of the head was not a scold, per se, but it was a denial of the humor. “I thought you would die. Seeing you, alive on my doorstep… I’m glad you didn’t.”

There it was, plain as day in his eyes. Munakata was alive and Yatogami had needed that assurance to the point of physical abandon… because there was no assurance that another king had made it through. Just like that, Munakata knew that this wasn’t a casual fling. It was a real relationship and it came with strings. Some of those strings might tangle with another set Munakata was reaching for and there was only one way to avoid that… but Munakata wasn’t entirely sure he could let those strings be snatched out of his hand now even if their rightful owner did come to claim them. He was greedy that way, and possessive. But he knew that he would overcome those traits if Weisman did return—for Yatogami’s sake.

Deliberately, he used his lover’s given name. “Kurou, I want you to know that we are searching. If the Silver king is out there, he will be found.”

“Thank you,” Yatogami breathed, the beginnings of tears sparkling in his eyes but subsiding unshed. “I heard that Sceptre 4 was attacked,” he said, changing the subject.

“Yes,” Munakata admitted. Knowing of the history that eclipsed his own, he smothered his own feelings about the perpetrator and spoke without inflection. “By Mishakuji Yukari. We were unable to apprehend him.”

Yatogami nodded, retreating into his tea for a time. Munakata did the same, appreciating the strong blend of green tea and black.

“I could have killed him.”

“Why didn’t you?”

Yatogami shook his head again, almost as if to clear it of unwanted thoughts. He sighed. “I’ve never been able to believe he was as selfish as he pretended; even when he turned his sword upon Ichigen-sama… The things he did under Hisui Nagare’s leadership… I still can’t shake the instinct that he’s only doing what he thinks is right.”

“Whatever he thinks is right, he’s mistaken,” Munakata responded curtly. “When I find him, I’ll be sure to bring that to his attention.”

“The official line is that he was after your turn-coat,” Yatogami noted. “Do you really believe they meant to kill him?”

Apparently Munakata wasn’t the only one with suspicious instincts—or perhaps Yatogami simply knew the swordsman who had been his senpai well enough to discern his hidden motives.

“No,” he said honestly, intending to leave it at that.

“You think he was trying to break Fushimi-san out.”

“Is that what you think?”

“Maybe… If he had some reason to feel attached. Do you really trust Fushimi-san?” Yatogami asked. The jealousy that blackened his tone was as obvious as could be. “If Yukari wants him back, he must have good reason.”

“I trust Fushimi more than I trust myself,” Munakata responded. He felt slightly guilty for the reproach in that statement but did not regret uttering the truth. Although, not even he was sure whether his belief in Fushimi was extraordinary, or his faith in himself was below the mark.

“Do you trust me?” Yatogami asked, showing a hint of uncertainty.

Munakata smiled at him, letting the depth of his affection show. “As much as I trust Fushimi, and all of my men—and Awashima,” he added with a tweak of laughter. “Kurou… I would welcome you among them, you know.”

“…Not yet,” Yatogami repeated. Then, he changed tracks, skipping back to their previous, equally uncomfortable topic. “If you trust me, then trust this: Mishakuji Yukari won’t give up easily once he’s set his mind on something. If it’s Fushimi-san he wants, then you’d better be prepared for a fight.”

*

Kurou secretly wished Yukari would succeed in stealing Fushimi away and that the two of them would disappear together and remove the two greatest complications of Kurou’s life. Maybe that was the subconscious reason that he had let Yukari live. It was childish, and just downright terrible of him, but it was what he wished.

He considered himself enlightened for following Master Ichigen’s teachings in taking the hard path and warning his lover against Yukari. It wasn’t much, to be sure. Munakata was no fool. If he cared for Fushimi half as much as Kurou suspected, he would already be on guard. Still, Kurou knew best the extent of Yukari’s determination and craftiness. It was the least he could do to drive the point home.

Frankly, he was a little surprised by how swiftly he had turned from resolve to avoid Munakata and the questions that surrounded their past and future, to falling right into bed with him and comfortably discussing uncomfortable matters. They were well suited to each other, as Munakata had pointed out once. Kurou felt at home with him, even when they were at odds.

Even when he felt guilty for feeling so at home. It wasn’t the same sensation as being together with Shiro and Neko, though. That was a much more fulfilling sense of love and warmth—of family. This was… a campfire in the night; a makeshift spot turned into friendly territory for the interim.

If Shiro never returned, could he put down roots before this campfire and let a home be built around it? Or would someone else come to steal his fire?

There was no point in dwelling on it. Munakata’s time was too limited to be overshadowed by doubts and fears.

So they made love once more—this time without the rabid passion that had resulted in quick, dirty sex like Kurou had never known. This time, they shared gentle kisses and held hands, and even whispered sweet nothings. Well, maybe not quite so sweet. Munakata’s dirty mouth would probably scandalize his underlings.

Kurou loved it.

Later, after they’d showered and Neko came home tired and grumpy, Kurou invited him to join in their meal, sharing the extra serving that was usually thrown away. He admired how Munakata avoided teasing the bitter kitten too much, even while he lamented Neko’s sadness—as well as her obvious dislike for “Boss Megane” who should have better things to do than eat their food and distract “Kurosuke” from whatever it was she considered to be a more important use of his time.

At the door, he kissed Munakata softly on the lips, then tilted his head as a question suddenly occurred to him.

“How did you get in here?”

Munakata just took a step back and gestured to his impeccably re-assembled uniform. “The desk has its perks,” he teased. “You should come test them out again some time.”

He was a filthy bastard.

…So was Munakata.

“It would be my pleasure.”

*

There had been much to deal with in the wake of recent events; not the least of which being the process of retrieving his title and duties and seeing to Fushimi’s safety and comfort, as well as the circumstances of certain other prisoners. It wasn’t that he hadn’t considered that Yatogami might need him at this time. On the contrary, he knew that must be the case, and yet he had neglected to make time.

Because of Fushimi. Munakata knew he needed to break off this tryst with Yatogami or he could not court Fushimi in good conscience—and he was convinced that this was in Yatogami’s best interests, as well… Just not right now. Right now, Yatogami needed him, and he was obliged to fill that need.

If Weisman returned… When Weisman returned, they would cross whatever bridge needed crossing. When… If Fushimi came to terms with the confessions Munakata had yet to make… If he himself could accept whatever Fushimi was still hiding… They would work it out. All of them. They’d already thwarted the end of the world. How hard could a little romance be?


	8. Chapter 8

Weighed down with the guilt of his inability to put a stop to things with Yatogami at this point, Munakata avoided visiting Fushimi—until he received a phone call from Hidaka, relating in confidence that Fushimi was nowhere to be found. Loyal to a fault, Hidaka had decided that it should be Munakata’s decision whether or not to put out an alert, for then there would be no choice but to return the escapee to a proper cell and suspicions would begin to rise again. A fine young officer, Hidaka was also a better friend than Fushimi deserved, and likely guessed what Munakata instantly understood—that Fushimi was flexing his muscles just to prove he still had them.

That much was abundantly clear when Munakata drove past a neat little café right beside the hotel where his charge was supposed to be held in captivity. That charge currently had his nose buried in a large mug of coffee, was blatantly seated outdoors, and seemed not to have a care in the world for the holy hell Munakata was obliged to unleash upon him.

There was no point in signaling the change in destination. Munakata had the driver drop him off at the hotel entrance, then made a show of checking his watch, looking toward the café, looking up at the building, and then seemed to make a spontaneous decision to go get coffee first. Seeing as Fushimi was just sitting out there in broad daylight, the ruse had little purpose but old habits die hard.

When he sat down across from Fushimi, who stolidly ignored him in favor of the contents of his mug, Munakata felt oddly relaxed. For all that stood between them, rank was not currently an issue. He wore his uniform, having been called away from morning drills, but Fushimi was smartly dressed in a light jacket and jeans, his hair lazily styled, and his demeanor radiating contentment.

Would they be able to enjoy a scene like this someday? Just two men, quietly appreciating each other’s company over coffee (or tea, in Munakata’s case, as he directed the waitress).

Finally, Fushimi deigned to look at him. There must have been some kind of drug in the coffee, for he wore an uncommonly goofy smile and voiced the very thought Munakata had smothered before it could rankle.

“Wouldn’t it be nice to go on a date like this?”

Daring words. Evidently, Fushimi had no intention of trying to stuff the rabbit back into the hat now that their feelings for each other had been addressed.

“It would be much nicer if you didn’t put me in such an awkward position.”

“I’m sure we can find a position you’ll enjoy,” Fushimi teased, capitalizing on his unusually good mood. “But for now, I just wanted a breath of fresh air.”

“If anyone else had been on duty-”

“Why do you think I waited for Hidaka?” Fushimi smirked, burying his face in the oversized mug again. “You really ought to re-think that assignment, you know. He’s much too soft.”

“He requested it,” Munakata responded gravely, wanting Fushimi to feel some sense of remorse for taking advantage so easily.

He would not, of course. It was not in his nature—a nature that made him a valuable undercover asset, a job well done for which he now paid an unfair price.

The silence stretched out and Fushimi appeared supremely unbothered by the anticipation Munakata exuded, until the captain thanked the waitress who brought his green tea and sighed over it. Green tea made out of tea bags was like non-alcoholic sake—bitter and appealing to one who had acquired the taste but without the depth of flavor and devoid of all the _medicinal_ benefits.

“One more cup, and then you’ll sneak back in?”

“As if I’d never left. Only you, me, and Hidaka will ever know.”

“Excuse me,” Munakata’s eyes flicked to the name displayed on the lapel of the quaint pink uniform blouse. “Yuriko, another cup of whatever magic has made my friend here so amenable, please.”

*

It wasn’t about playing a prank on Hidaka or Munakata. It wasn’t even about feeling claustrophobic and frustrated with the very limited entertainment he had on hand. It was about proving that he could escape if he wanted to. Not to Munakata, or to anyone else, despite what the captain would surely think, but to himself. He needed to know that he was capable of freeing himself if he needed to. Plus the coffee was good. Also, the PDA he’d swiped from a rich-looking fellow arguing with his adorably stubborn Shiba puppy would come in handy.

To be honest, he’d expected his very public location to throw Munakata off for a while but the captain spotted him so swiftly it was almost a little daunting. Fushimi wondered if he, himself, would have passed that test so well.

Once the inevitable silent scorching of pointed eye contact and expressive frowns underpinning the mild verbal scolding passed, followed by a succinct phone call from Munakata to Hidaka (“Lost and found, will come by the room later”), the sojourn was rather pleasant. Good coffee, warming sunlight in the cool spring air, and amiable company; it was near paradise, in fact.

The captain gradually relaxed, laughing at Fushimi’s story of the Shiba that had parked its ass by his foot and refused to move because it was tired of walking. His comment that such antics reminded him of a vaguely implicated _someone_ was a cheeky slur but only served to conversely stroke Fushimi’s pride and further improve his good mood.

Than again, the treatment he received after dutifully returning to his room without triggering any sensors or being seen by any of the special security team crawling from the woodwork throughout the hotel, was bittersweet. On one hand, a personal frisking by Munakata himself was the perfect way to end what felt like a short but sweet date. On the other hand, while it got Munakata’s hands running simultaneously over both butt-cheeks a few more times than necessary, Fushimi had had plans for that PDA and would now be relegated to endless boredom once again.

Tossing the device in his hand, the captain looked impossibly smug. “I’ll leave this in the keeping of the café for a man with a Shiba dog, shall I?”

Fushimi’s irritated tongue click expressed his thoughts on that. “I’m going out of my mind with boredom. The least you could do is hang around for a bit.”

“I’m sorry, Fushimi-kun, but I’ve already wasted more time here than I have to spare.”

Wasted. As if Fushimi was nothing more than a nuisance.

Brushing aside the hurt, he snorted. “How busy can you be these days?”

“In case you have forgotten, there are many strains whose powers linger, and as if it weren’t enough of a headache trying to identify them all, there is also a dangerous terrorist on the loose.” Straightening his jacket and slipping the PDA into his pocket, Munakata made his retreat. “I must return to headquarters immediately. The sooner he is found, the sooner-”

“Don’t go.” Losing his entire sense of self for just a moment, Fushimi flung his arms about Munakata from behind and held on desperately. “I’ll escape again and then you’ll just have to come back anyway.”

“You understand the demands of my work more than anyone. Please don’t make this difficult.”

“It _is_ difficult. It’s always been difficult, and now it’s more difficult than ever even without you avoiding me.” He wasn’t talking about the same thing Munakata was, at all. “That’s why I can’t let you run away again. I don’t know why you’re so afraid to be with me and I don’t care. It stops now.”

“Very well.” Munakata’s hand wrapped over his own and pried it free as he turned, still holding onto it. “I do, however, have a great deal of work to do, so I can’t stay and entertain you for much longer—but I can give you something to think about.”

The change that came over him with that last phrase was swift and comprehensive. His voice dropped steadily to a low purr and his movements exuded the confidence of a big cat stalking its prey as he backed Fushimi toward the bedroom.

“Oh,” Fushimi uttered, kicking himself for having nothing more relevant to say. He hit the door frame and was herded around it. “I thought… Last time, you…” He swallowed.

“Last time,” Munakata crooned, immediately reaching for Fushimi’s belt when they stopped moving, “You were an angry mess—a hot mess—but a mess. Today, you’re just hot.”

Tugging on the belt until it slid free of each of its loops, the captain tossed it aside with relish. Without preamble, he began to open up Fushimi’s jeans, causing the younger man to blush when he realized how fast things were moving all of a sudden.

Why the shyness? Wasn’t this exactly what he wanted? Had he imagined Munakata dreamily spouting bad romantic poetry and talking through every foray into new territory?

In fact, he had imagined exactly that. He’d been resigned to the idea, and almost begun looking forward to it in that time-old “If you can’t beat them, join them,” mentality. Now here they were, Munakata with his eyes on the prize and Fushimi too stunned to make the most of it.

“Stop thinking so hard,” Munakata teased. He leaned in—and licked Fushimi’s frown-wrinkled brow.

“Wha-?”

“This one’s a freebie,” the captain continued, pulling back to look into his eyes. “So you’ll stay put until we can sort things out for real.”

A chaste kiss on the lips and then Munakata dropped to his knees, tugging Fushimi’s jeans down with him in preparation for a not-so-chaste kiss somewhere else. All it took was a double tap to the hips to topple Fushimi onto the bed where he sat, bound at the calves by skinny jeans that were as effective as shackles and completely exposed to Munakata’s scrutiny.

The captain didn’t seem interested in a comparison of anatomy, however. He was too busy taking in a deep breath through his nose like a chef inhaling the heady scent of his latest masterpiece. It was odd… and also highly erotic.

Schooled by a wealth of fantasies positively reinforced by many an orgasm, Fushimi’s libido had woken up right from that mostly-but-not-entirely-impartial pat-down. Now, naked in the middle with prideful Munakata down on his knees, breathing in the musk of his arousal…

Fushimi couldn’t bear the jacket any longer, his whole body was overheating. He tore the zip open and shimmied out of it, still staring down at Munakata in mild shock. Then, the captain’s eyes rose to meet his own and a shiver of ice tickled his spine in homage to those startlingly beautiful tundras.

“Fushimi-kun, you mustn’t look so scandalized or I might think you didn’t want this.”

Fushimi hurriedly shook his head; his throat too thick for speech. What was wrong with him?

For just a moment, Munakata looked surprised, a crease of hesitation appearing between his eyes, but then he slowly smiled. “You’ve been so talkative lately, I forgot that succinct and silent are your default settings.”

Fushimi opened his mouth to refute the insult, then shut it with an audible snap, realizing that it was true, and thus not, in fact, an insult. At first, he was frustrated by Munakata’s laughter, but then it struck a chord in him.

Laughter was the difference between the closeness he had shared with Hirasaka and the depravity he had engaged in with Mishakuji Yukari. In the instant of that realization, he vowed to himself never to go to bed without it again.

He let the laughter infect him and relaxed enough to smirk. “Freebie now. Talk later. That was the deal, right?” His plan, as he saw it in his mind’s eye, was to lean down and provoke Munakata with proximity and daring, but he never got that far. “That’s what you-Haaaa!”

Was there a black hole in his fucking throat? Hells bells but he was good!

Aware that he was making the kind of ridiculous strangled sound one might spell out entirely in consonants, Fushimi clamped his teeth closed and silenced himself. His fingers groped for something to grip in a sad effort to balance out the tactile stimulation and found the curtain of Munakata’s bangs, sliding through to push them back off the captain’s forehead. He buried his knuckles in the jet-black thickness and pried open his eyes. In protest of the utterly lewd view, his stomach clamped tight and his breath caught in his throat.

A little voice in the back of Fushimi’s head spouted a lecture on how he was unusually turned-on with the intensity meter in the red and that it wasn’t just that Munakata was the master of all cocksuckers. It speculated on how the visual stimulation of watching one’s own captain swallow one whole would unravel even, well, him. It interjected that there might even be an element of emotion invested in the heightened physical reaction. It fell on deaf ears.

Later, Fushimi might recall some of those stray thoughts and maybe even dwell on them. For now, he was uncompromisingly devoted to watching his cock slide in and out of those thin, pale lips while bedroom eyes occasionally stoked the fire in him until the hearth roared.

The word he uttered was the one of his fantasies, fraught with all the implications and temptations that would guarantee he got a free room upgrade for the spot in hell he’d already put a down-payment on.

“Captain-”

The last thought before his brain short-circuited was that it was unfair of Munakata to put such skill to use in bringing Fushimi off so impossibly quickly. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. It wasn’t supposed to be so…

…fucking intense.

By the time Fushimi found the will to shake off the numb lethargy and mild tingle and raise himself up from the sprawl he’d collapsed into, Munakata was halfway out the door. Trust him to make a break for it before they could address what had just happened.

 “You won’t be alone and bored for long!” the captain called in a proud and gleeful tone. “I’ll send Hidaka in!”

That shocked Fushimi out of the afterglow and into action, scrambling to restore his jeans to propriety. The tongue-lashing he was about to receive was bad enough without literally getting caught with his pants down.

*

Sacrificing Tsukuna was an unfortunate necessity, or else the childish gamer would persist with his “mission” to kill Fushimi until he succeeded. For once, it wasn’t just about games with him, though. He wanted Fushimi dead for betraying JUNGLE, and for taking Nagare.

Yukari used that wrath to his advantage, and he was missing it now. His split-second decision to let Tsukuna be captured as planned despite the failure of the mission had been a mistake. Now, Yukari had to figure out a way through all of the security on that hotel and out again by himself. Tactics, he had a firm grasp of, but strategy was Tsukuna’s field.

Thus, when he followed the Blue king’s progress from the hotel entrance to the little café next door, where he parked himself directly in front of a bafflingly free Fushimi lounging about in the sun, Yukari was simultaneously struck with shock that he had missed signs of such an escape and horror that he had missed such an opportunity. He was wise enough to know there would not be another like it.

Furious with himself, he left the location and returned to the site of his alternate scouting project across town, determining that focusing his efforts into breaking out Hirasaka Douhan was his best chance of freeing Fushimi. That she was still in captivity implied that her powers, like most JUNGLE members’, were now defunct. However, Yukari had a backup to make use of her particular affinity, and besides, she had a keen strategic mind and a range of skills unrelated to her stint as a clansman. Moreover, she had aided Fushimi in his infiltration of the Green clan and thus would not harbor any ill will toward him for its downfall. The monetary compensation she would no-doubt demand was well within his means.

Security on Hirasaka was just as heavy as on Fushimi, but the hotel layout was less demanding—no card key requirements for the elevators and with a more regular influx and exodus of tourists providing camouflage. Yukari had learned that, unlike Fushimi who was supposedly on total lockdown, she was to be escorted from the premises in a few days time for a medical screening prior to her court date. It was the perfect opportunity to rescue her from the lobby before security closed in around the armored car they would herd her into.

Again, unlike Fushimi, she would be grateful to make a break for freedom. What had possessed the former officer to hang around in plain sight just waiting for Munakata Reisi to find him, Yukari couldn’t even begin to fathom. Sceptre 4 had thrown him under the bus and were shifting gears to reverse back over him once they were done with Hirasaka. It looked like it was up to Yukari to help him see the truth of that. Whatever hold the Blue king still had on his former clansman, Yukari would slice through it and cut a path to clarity if he had to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did I do good, for once? ^_^


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promised it would be worth it, but only you can be the judge of that... So, let me know when you reach the end of this chapter: Was it worth the wait?

Munakata Reisi was a brilliant strategist, but he failed to account for one thing: Fushimi Saruhiko was also a brilliant strategist; one with significantly less patience.

“I hated you.”

“Excuse me?” Having just walked through the door, Munakata stopped in his tracks, taken aback by the ambush tactics.

Seated on the couch with two glasses and a bottle of cognac laid out before him, Fushimi took up the bottle and poured as he spoke. He must have been sitting there, just staring at the deep amber and stewing in his thoughts until Munakata’s unannounced but expected arrival.

“Even now, I don’t know how much of what you said was real, or if any of it was even truly false. Either way, it hurt me like nothing else.”

The fight. The mission. This was Fushimi pressing fast-forward.

Clearly, no invitation would be forthcoming, so Munakata took it upon himself to walk over to the couch and take a seat beside the young man who was making an unprecedented effort to shed light on the mysterious workings of his complicated heart.

“When I left HOMRA, you were the only one who never accused me of betraying Mikoto, even though…” (Even though you were in love with him.) “I hated that, too. I chose you because I respected you...” (Unlike him.) “All along, you were the only king worthy of my service, and yet you gave yourself to the king I left behind. It felt like you were mocking me somehow—but you never did…” (Not out loud.) “Not until…” (You finally said what I was terrified you had always thought.) “Did you know? Did you know all along that everything I said was for the mission? When you called me a traitor… Did you know?”

Swilling the cognac in its fat little short-stemmed glass was nothing more than an attempt to stall. Scenting the depth of its flavor and taking a small, appreciative sip; it was all a show. _See how calm I am? Your tactics do not faze me. If this is to be another battlefield, I will be the one to rule over it._

“Did you know that demons live among us, Fushimi-kun? Every lie we tell, no matter how small and for what reason; every little lie is at the will of a demon whispering in our ear. There’s one whispering to you now; telling you to lie to me and say you didn’t mean all that you accused me of that night. If you confess to having believed every word you spoke, you imagine I will be hurt, and perhaps unable to love you.”

A mouthful of strong liquor with a mellow aftertaste. A burning warmth trickling through his insides. It wasn’t anywhere near fortification enough.

“You were right. I was weak and petty. My ego was fractured and I let down my guard for all to see what a sore loser I truly am. You meant what you said, because it was true.”

The pause was meant for Munakata to gather the right words to convey what he felt, but Fushimi took it as hesitation. He threw back his own glass of cognac with a gulp and placed the empty shell down heavily but with precision, then whirled on Munakata with dizzying intent. The captain spoke rashly to forestall whatever he might say that would be too difficult to take back.

“I was so weak, Fushimi-kun, that I gave in to my own demons and I lied, and spoke words that I knew would hurt you. I was wrong and you have every right to hate me for it, not because I believed those words—but because I said them with the intent to cause you pain.”

*

There it was; the truth that they had been dancing around—the issue that had been creating unseen tangles in the thread that zigzagged between and circled around them in a big mess of complication. This was what Fushimi had needed to hear, and yet, he wished he hadn’t.

He didn’t want Munakata to be this petty man who made mistakes and spiteful choices. His captain—his king—was supposed to be an infallible pillar of strength and confidence, to make up for the myriad flaws and weaknesses in Fushimi’s own character.

The liquor burned in him, roiling in his guts as if the disappointment in him were a catalyst. It was a disappointment he had no right to. This disappointment in Munakata’s humanity was only one more fatal flaw of his own.

The leap in his logic might have been a bit much for anyone else to follow, but Munakata was right there with him when he confessed the underlying remorse that lingered around his relations with Mishakuji Yukari—into whose arms Munakata had driven him with those harsh accusations.

“The first time, it was for the mission,” he breathed, shocked to find his throat constricted around the words and only just becoming aware of the tears sliding down his cheeks. “After that, it was because, together, the pain and the pleasure were just enough to drown out the screaming inside…”

Munakata’s arms were around him and that strong, dependable voice spoke into his ear. “It’s in the past. Mishakuji Yukari will never harm you again, I swear it. As for myself… When I lost Mikoto—listen. Don’t turn away. I understand that you are uncomfortable with that part of my history, but denying it will not change the facts. I loved him very much, Fushimi; but he’s gone now, and you and I are here. What is important is that I promised myself never again to engage in a relationship built on foundations any less solid than open-hearted trust and transparent truth. I can’t promise that I will never hurt you again, but I can promise that I am aware of my demons and I will always try to listen to your voice first and foremost.”

When Munakata kissed him, it was not the passionate event he longed for, but rather, a chaste touch of the lips in binding.

“The situation I sent you into was beyond what I had any right to ask of you in the name of ‘duty.’ I asked it of you not as captain of Sceptre 4 but as king of the Blue clan, and the debt I owe you is just as personal. I hope to spend my life paying you back with love.”

“All I’ve wanted—from the moment I met you, even when I thought I would die in JUNGLE—all I want is to finally be the man who gets to sleep beside you without regrets.” Taking a deep breath, Fushimi buried his face in his king’s chest, both composing himself to say what was necessary, and recapping the rehearsed discourse in his mind. “Munakata-”

“Reisi.”

“Munakata… I’m sorry. What I said to you that night… it was wrong. Please forgive me.”

“Done.”

So far, so good. “Now it’s your turn.”

“My turn?” Munakata’s surprise was evident.

“To apologize.”

“…I’m sorry.” Clearly, he had no idea what this specific apology was for, but he offered it readily anyway. It was sweet, really.

Fushimi pulled back, looking him solidly in the eyes. “Apology not accepted.”

“Fushimi-kun-”

“Before, when we argued, you told me it’s ok if I can’t forgive you,” Fushimi reminded him. “As long as I can forgive myself.”

It took him a moment but Munakata nodded, his brows furrowed just slightly in recollection. “I did.”

“But I can’t,” Fushimi confessed. “I can’t forgive myself.”

At last, Munakata’s posture relaxed into one of listening, as he realized there was still something vital Fushimi needed to say to him. “Is something holding you back?” he prompted.

“You are. You know I’m still hiding things from you—and you know I’ll get defensive if you ask. You’re right.” But those things still needed to be addressed. That was why it had to come from Fushimi, himself; willingly. If they were ever to be together, Munakata would first have to accept what Fushimi was about to say. Maybe then they could dabble in first names. As he made his confession, Fushimi met his king’s eyes with something akin to challenge, but that challenge was for himself—challenging himself not to back out. “I’m ashamed of the things I did to bring JUNGLE down but that’s not the extent of it. I’m ashamed of the things I enjoyed doing… Things like Mishakuji Yukari. He hurt me, and I thrived on it—but there’s something else you don’t know… Just because I enjoyed it doesn’t mean I wanted it.” For a moment, he was there again—writhing against a wall or bucking into a mattress, questioning himself at every moment. “It wasn’t easy,” he breathed, slowly opening eyes he’d shuttered to hide the pain so that Munakata could see the truth of what he was about to speak. “The one thing that got me through it all—was you. There are things I will never, ever tell you, and I would appreciate it if you would concede me that discretion… but there is one secret I have to give up, because I’m tired of holding onto it. I’m tired of wishing you would figure it out for yourself. I love you. I can’t forgive myself unless you forgive me first—not for the things I said, but for the things I did; the things you know about, and the things you don’t.”

“I forgive you, Fushimi. For all of it.”

“Show me,” Fushimi whispered, needing just this once for there to be no hesitation.

There was; some.

“I think, perhaps, you have come to rely too strongly on physicality,” Munakata suggested, still holding his folded hands primly in his lap and making no move to act on the request.

“Maybe,” Fushimi agreed. “But I trust you not to take advantage,” he added, not backing down, because if Munakata rejected him or ran away yet again, he would be swallowed whole by his regrets.

The change in his spacial co-ordinates sent Fushimi reeling before he was able to comprehend that he had been swept up into Munakata’s strong arms. The captain carried him unerringly to the bedroom and deposited him none-too-gently on the bed, looming over him with the kind of authority and daring he had always admired.

“There are no ‘last chances,’” Munakata exhaled. “Whatever mistakes I make, I only hope you will accept them as readily as I will accept yours. If you decide for this to stop, there’s no such thing as ‘too late.’ I will respect your wishes. All I ask is that you look at me now not as your king but as a man who loves you, and has wanted to be with you for longer than he can admit.”

The constant, analytical voice in the back of Fushimi’s head that was ever reluctant to give in, whatever the scenario, reminded him that Munakata was extremely adept at getting what he wanted. Somehow, he always said just the right thing. Those demons of his must be cunning as well as cruel.

He ignored it, as had become custom, because he simply wanted to believe with all of his heart that Munakata just understood him well enough to say what he needed to hear and mean every word of it. For once, he chose to put aside his instinct for paranoid self-preservation, and to let this man become his conscience.

“I can do that… Reisi,” he whispered, and as he did so, the corners of his lips turned upward in a rare symbol of peace for how comfortably the name rolled off his tongue.

*

One part of Munakata was terrified. What had he agreed to let slide? What horrors was Fushimi keeping from him? What atrocity of his own was he not to be forgiven for? It was one thing to claim he didn’t mind if Fushimi could not forgive him; it was another not to know what forgiveness he must withhold from himself in turn.

Another part of Munakata was cynical. Fushimi was far too eager to jump into bed, and they weren’t ready yet. The healing process was just beginning, and there were still things… There was still Yatogami. Perhaps Fushimi might have understood if he had been up-front about it but the time for that was well passed. Nor could Munakata ask plainly about what might have happened between Fushimi and Hirasaka Douhan, for all of his suspicions. There was still so much…

And yet, none of it meant anything if he lost Fushimi now. If physicality was what was required to give his feelings enough tangibility to be trusted then Munakata would put his doubts aside.

After all, neither he, nor Fushimi, were blushing virgins. Neither was ruled solely by emotion, though there had been an unusual abundance of it lately. Logic and reason drove them both and wherever they landed coming down from this diversion, logic and reason would guide them back to where they needed to be.

“I’m glad to hear that, Saruhiko.”

*

There were teasing caresses and explorative kisses as they disrobed, but little talk. They’d already filled Fushimi’s quote of that for the week at least. The less that was said, the more focus he could devote to savoring all of the intimate sensations that belonged to this man alone who he had dreamed of for so long.

His eyes, for one. Framed, they were sparkling ice. Unframed, they were like jewels, with similar quirks of depth and shade that Fushimi could get lost in. Then there was the way he kissed, like every bud of his tongue submitted a different report to his brain and he was determined to thoroughly investigate each one. His habit of letting slip little chuckles as if delighted by a private joke was both infuriating and endearing, and somehow gave Fushimi the sense that he was being enjoyed in a way no-one had ever done before.

Observing all of this, Fushimi wondered if he had any such idiosyncrasies to compare. Tomorrow, when he was hard at work and obligated to keep his mind on important matters, what details would Munakata recall and chuckle over, leaving his companions confused and a little disturbed?

As Munakata descended down Fushimi’s body, worshipping whatever intricacies of scarred, pale skin his tongue happened to discover, the memory of the last mind-blowing oral the younger man been on the receiving end of instilled a tremor in the rhythm of his inhalation. His lids grew heavy with lust as he looked down on that midnight hair contrasting against the white of his own belly.

With only a hint of regret, he wrapped his legs about the torso of the man slowly making his way down to what he seemed to regard as a treasure nestled below. Utilizing an athleticism born of a misspent youth compounded in solid training despite his nerdy façade, Fushimi rolled both himself and the larger body caught between his thighs, kneeling above Munakata’s artfully muscled chest and planting his hands deliberately to either side of his head.

“What makes you think you can have seconds when I haven’t even had my first serving?” he chided.

For one thing, Munakata was far too smug within the confines of the bedroom; no doubt impressed with himself, having utterly overwhelmed Fushimi in here only a few days ago. Just as confident in his own skills, Fushimi looked forward to wiping that self-satisfied smirk from his face.

There was another reason, though. While he refused to dwell on it or consciously acknowledge the origins of the impetus, Fushimi needed to overwrite the memory of the last blow-job he had given before it stained his recollection forever. He needed to associate the giving of pleasure with someone he cared about, and who better than someone he loved?

But mostly, he just wanted to show off.

*

When the first expletive escaped his lips, Munakata knew he was soon to be undone. Fushimi had a talent for finding buttons to press and weaknesses to exploit.

Didn’t he know that none of that was necessary? Just the scent of him, the feel on his hair between clutching fingers, the sinful look in his sharp eyes behind the glasses Munakata had yet to take from him…

With a cry, Munakata arched up off the bed, squeezing his eyes closed and letting sensation course through him. He shouldn’t be anywhere near orgasm, and yet, these little tricks of the tongue kept cheating his body into spikes of pleasure that left him panting and unfocused.

“Sa-” His voice caught, barely more coherent than ground gravel. He cleared his throat, moaned, and then tried again. “Saruhiko.”

“Mmmm?”

The vibrations of that needlessly extended hum continued through his body, shivering up his spine until the very same hum left his own throat. Only when the ripples passed did he remember he had been trying to speak.

“Come here.”

“What was that?”

It was a lot easier to sound assertive when 90% of his brain wasn’t intent on the doings of that blasted tongue.

“I said, come here,” growled Munakata, nudging Fushimi from below with his right leg to emphasize the order.

“Is that an order?”

“Yes, that’s an-”

Momentarily flabbergasted, Munakata stared at his cheeky little lover in wide-eyed comprehension. Fushimi didn’t have to comment on the slip, or that he himself was the one who had asked that rank and servitude be removed from the equation.

What else could he do but laugh? “That’s a request,” he rephrased.

“Oh, so it’s optional, then,” Fushimi responded, bending back to his task.

“No, it’s not optional!” Munakata choked. “Because if you keep on with that, I’ll…”

“You’ll?” The dark, slurring tone held shades of warning mixed with amusement that presented as sheer challenge and it did nothing to tame the raging fire in Munakata’s loins.

It was hard to think through the fog of intense lust but there was a puzzle here. What was the goal? What was the end-game? Why the insolence? Why the challenge? What could Fushimi possibly gain by…

Dominance. Munakata had already slipped into the role of authority he was accustomed to, so Fushimi was urging him to relinquish dominance. He had two choices; insist until Fushimi obeyed, or ask—with humility. Very well.

“I’ll fall apart,” he finished on a sigh. “You are—very—good at that; you win, in fact.” Oh yes, that smug glint confirmed that it had indeed been a competition. “But please… Come here and let me show you how I feel, just like I promised.”

“Not yet,” Fushimi muttered. “Let me show you first,” he said.

Munakata almost protested, but instead of putting his mouth to work on finishing what he’d started, Fushimi got off the bed and slipped into the bathroom, returning with a tube of lotion. Without a word, he handed Munakata his glasses and then settled on the edge of the bed, swinging his right leg over to straddle Munakata’s body. Up on his knees, he favored the prone man with a very straightforward stare as he reached around behind himself with slick fingers.

Enthralled as the tiniest sliver of pink tongue darted out to wet dusky lips, Munakata moaned in sympathy as Fushimi’s posture and expression indicated his fingers were making headway into his own body. He eyelids fell and those feminine lashes fluttered enticingly. His mouth worked every so often and then his head rolled back on his neck as he arched and thrust up into himself.

Before he crushed them, Munakata blindly deposited the glasses he held on the bedside table, his eyes still riveted on Fushimi. It was hard to swallow, hard to breathe, just… hard. So hard.

“I get it,” Munakata spoke thickly. “I see. I do. I… Please.”

With another flutter, Fushimi’s eyes opened. He was frozen with his head thrown back, his chest thrust forward, and his lips slightly open. Slowly, they formed into a smile.

Withdrawing his fingers, he crawled forward, predatory and cat-like, until his lips were pressed dormant against Munakata’s.

“Show me,” he whispered.

And then, there was nothing dormant about those lips or that thrusting tongue, or the flushed and heated body in his arms.

*

Fushimi’s arms were braced against the headboard, straining the counter each hard thrust threatening to crack his head against the solid wood. That was all the resistance he had left in him; the rest of his body was forfeit to Munakata, ruled by his rhythm and whim, and exultant for it.

This wasn’t at all the gentle, emotional sex he’d always imagined. He never would have guessed the captain had this passionate ravisher hidden away, biding his time and just waiting for Fushimi to tease him out. This was harsh, but not painful; intense but not sentimental. It was exactly the intimacy and understanding he needed.

That was why he almost choked up with tears when Munakata followed him with expert empathy to that place where he was vulnerable and desperate for acceptance. The pace slowed almost to a halt and Munakata rocked ever so gently as his breath beat against Fushimi’s ear. He softly touched his lips to the lobe and whispered, “I forgive you. From now on, it’s just you and me, and I will always forgive you. I’ll love you when you need to be loved, and pound you when you need that, too; and I’ll accept your exhibitionist tendencies and your competitive streak, and sometimes I’ll even let you take charge if that’s what you want.”

A wordless cry tore from Fushimi’s throat to expel all of the pent-up emotion he was incapable of identifying, and then Munakata took the struggle away from him by pinning his wrists and driving into him from a new angle that quickly shattered the world into thousands of fragments of light, sound, and feeling punctuated with a single shout:

“Reisi!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are still a few curves before we reach the end of the track, so stay tuned!


	10. Chapter 10

Cradling the limp, sleeping body in his arms, Munakata buried a thousandth kiss in hair dampened with sweat that smelled deliciously of Fushimi. He inhaled and the rising tension in him uncoiled once more.

There was still so much he was concerned for, perhaps even afraid of, but in this moment, it was worth whatever may come. To hold Fushimi in his arms, so relaxed with trust and security as to fall deeply asleep after a few incoherent mutterings, he felt honored. Dirty, sweaty, gross, and tired, but honored.

He had known of Fushimi’s desire for him and of the feelings that ensued ever since the Blue clan had gained him as an asset, but then he had been involved in a complicated to-and-fro with Mikoto that took everything he had. Freed, in a way, of that prior engagement, Munakata was surprised to find that Fushimi had become an integral part of his world. Work and duty had regrettably stood in the way of exploring the possibilities and only when Fushimi felt lost to him, shoved into danger by his own guilty hands, did he come to realize exactly what this young man meant to him.

What he hadn’t understood was the depth of emotion and the strength of the need locked up so tightly in Fushimi that even Munakata had not been prepared for it. At last, he understood how petty his jealousies were, and how weak he was for letting his guilt stand in the way of being there for the one he loved. He had given himself a thousand excuses, but none of them were viable. He should have kissed and held Fushimi and never let go from the moment he snatched this precious man back from the jaws of demise.

Whatever obligation he owed to Yatogami, it could not compare to that he owed Fushimi and it was high time he took responsibility for his cowardice and greed. Tomorrow, he would end things with the Black Dog and then confess all of his transgressions to the man he hoped to spend the rest of his life with—not as his subordinate, but as his recognized life partner.

*

Between them, Kukuri and Neko had decided that Kurou was moping and needed to get off the island for a change of pace and environment. The girls insisted that he join them and a few other friends for a picnic at Shinjuku Gyoen and had gone ahead to make preparations. Neko—fully aware that he would simply ignore them if given half a chance—had taken his voice recorder hostage, leaving him with little choice but to play along. The continuous and futile urge to consult Ichigen-sama on the predicament was beyond frustrating.

As it was a weekend, the suspended monorail that offered passage to and from Ashinaka was packed but not crowded so Kurou took one of the few open seats and turned his attention to the view of the sea. The carriage filled up a little more at the stop just at the edge of the island and he considered giving up his seat but it was a short trip for anyone and he was feeling unusually petulant.

“My, my. Perhaps chivalry _is_ dead,” crooned a familiar voice from the seat back to back with his own.

Every fiber of Kurou’s being stiffened and prickled at that sound.

“Now, now. Don’t cause a scene. You wouldn’t want all these lovely children to get caught up in our problems, would you?”

The threat was barely veiled but anyone listening in would be hard-pressed to glean the true malice Yukari implied: that he would kill bystanders if Kurou tried to confront him. It seemed to be a day for hostage treaties.

Already tired of games and feeling bereft of motivation, Kurou’s body melded back into the seat frame and his eyes drifted back to the ocean that isolated the little island he called home. The girls were right. He was sulking. It was the only way to explain his musing that the island was a metaphor for his isolated heart.

“Get to the point, Yukari.”

“The point, love? There is no point.” The diva laughed; a sound that grated on Kurou’s nerves like an air-raid siren. “I came to say goodbye.”

“Good riddance.”

“Now, Kurou, if you hated me as much as you pretend, you would have finished me when you had the chance. So let’s be honest for once… I’ll be leaving soon, once I have what I want. I’ll take him far away and you’ll never see us again—just the way you want it, I’m sure.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I can sense when I am detested. Even now, with your king missing and your precious sense of purpose dulled, I would be a fool to think you would welcome me. So I shall leave, and leave you to it, taking just one kindred soul with me for company. I daresay that will be to your benefit, too. Now you can keep that stuffy Blue suit all to yourself. Don’t say I never did anything for you. Farewell… little brother. I do love you.”

A shudder went through Kurou. It wasn’t revulsion as he would like to believe, simply rejection. He didn’t want to think of Yukari as anything but a villain, but those words rang with truth and opened up old wounds, packing them with confusion.

Whatever evils Yukari wrought from now on, they were on him. Kurou had been incapable of killing the man he had once looked up to as a big brother. He’d been incapable of snuffing out the life behind those eyes that looked at him with such longing to be loved and understood. Now he was responsible for what may come.

The monorail pulled in to the mainland station but Yukari was long gone by the time Kurou was on his feet and able to survey the crowd cramming out the doors. Swept along, Kurou went with the flow, wondering what his next choice would be.

Yukari proposed to leave; to step out of Kurou’s life forever. That in itself was the best that Kurou could hope for. He could never forgive his senpai for turning against Ichigen-sama, or for throwing in his lot with the dangerous Green clan, but he couldn’t kill him or wish ill on him, either. If Yukari simply disappeared, perhaps they could both be at peace.

If he intended to go alone, that would be one thing. He didn’t, though, and that left Kurou with quite a dilemma, because he wouldn’t entirely mind if Fushimi Saruhiko also disappeared into the night, never to return—but he knew someone who would, and he cared about that person enough to be concerned at what that disappearance would do to him.

So the question was: Did he tell Munakata Reisi that Yukari intended to make off with Fushimi Saruhiko, or did he keep that information to himself and simply watch events play out as they would? Ichigen-sama would have an answer for him, he was sure. First things first, he had to rescue his mentor from the scheming females.

*

Depression was not a trait Hirasaka was prone to, and yet…

She should have known better than to trust a man who wore a uniform like a second skin. She had known better. Something in Fushimi had swayed her to think better of people—and that man in particular. She’d stupidly believed her crimes would be overlooked in light of her co-operation with Fushimi’s undercover operation.

She’d stupidly believed Munakata was capable of such a sentiment as gratitude.

She hadn’t wanted his money. She didn’t need his money. She should have insisted that he withdraw the transfer, even if it was a pain in the ass. That was how she was entrapped. That money made her good deed just another job, another transaction, and so the bureaucrats could write her off without pause, even though she had returned some of it.

Sometimes, she found herself remembering her naïve invitation to Fushimi, that they could give it another shot when he was in better condition. She would have liked that.

It was a moot point. Even if they weren’t both being set up like cattle to the slaughter kept in separate pens and submersed in solitude; even if they had both been free to resume their lives as they had been before JUNGLE… Fushimi would be with Munakata. There would be no room for her in his life.

It was thoughts like that that alerted her to her deepening depression. It was thoughts like that that kept her from plotting ways to escape when the guards came and restrained her hands. They gave her a series of orders and lead her to the service elevator where she couldn’t use the opportunity of a hotel guest getting on at another floor to take a hostage or some other such futile action.

Futile. Not because she couldn’t escape… but because she didn’t care to. She had nothing worth escaping for.

Why? Because she couldn’t have Fushimi?

Rubbish. She didn’t need a man to make her life worth living—certainly not a man who was stupid enough to fall for a self-righteous prat like Munakata Reisi.

Just like that, in perfect synchronization with the dated “ding” of the elevator doors opening onto the far end of the lobby, Hirasaka came to the conclusion that she would indeed like to be free. The sweep-kick that knocked down both guards at once would only get her so far before the two prone men had guns trained on her and the other guards situated throughout the lobby and at all of the doors realized what was going on and apprehended her.

It was lucky for her that she had a surprise ally who took his cue from her to burst through the revolving door and cut down the guard there as well as the two others within his reach. Using the confusion, Hirasaka made a run for the front desk that stretched along one wall, ducking behind it and running with her torso bent so low that the desk gave her complete cover. She shoved the hotel staff out of the way—except for the last stunned woman who she grabbed around the waist and pulled with her like a shield.

It was so easy. The guards had focused on Mishakuji Yukari who now held the doors and was cutting down the few bullets that flew his way when there were no panicking hotel guests to get in the line of fire. The hostage gave Hirasaka freedom of movement.

Even as the guards called for backup, Hirasaka dumped the woman in front of the revolving door and made a break for it together with Mishakuji Yukari—who snatched the keys from a very confused valet who had just pulled up in a lush Porsche. He made some distasteful comment about beautiful timing and then jumped over the passenger seat of the convertible, shoved the key into the ignition, and revved the engine.

Her blood pumping, Hirasaka dived in after him, laughing at the shouts of a man who jumped behind the accelerating vehicle with spread arms and frantically implored the gunmen not to shoot his precious car.

“Kind of him to put himself between us and those bullets,” Hirasaka noted. “We should repay the favor.”

“I suppose that would be the most attractive course of action,” Yukari commented. “We’ll drop this baby at a dealership and have it driven back to him. That ought to make it right.”

“Assuming you don’t crash it first.”

“Hirasaka, darling, _that_ would be a very ugly and undignified thing to do. I assure you, it won’t happen. Now be a dear and write a note for the kind staff at Porsche, would you? There happens to be a dealership right by our port of call.”

“Which is?”

“I imagine you’ll be quite jealous when you see the luxurious hotel they’ve got Fushimi holed up in. Thankfully we won’t have to cause quite such a ruckus this time.”

“Do you intend to share the plan or must I guess?”

Pulling something out from his coat pocket, Mishakuji smirked. He tossed it to her.

“That PDA is connected to a backup server which contains the last reserves of Green power stored before Nagare’s death and the destruction of the slate. You’re going to walk us right in through the walls, just like old times.”

“What’s in it for me?”

As he careened around a corner at a ridiculous speed, the eyebrow Mishakuji raised at her was the only thing she could make out that wasn’t hideously blurred.

“Your freedom, of course,” he drawled. “Half paid in advance… and half when we’re all lying comfortably on a gorgeous beach in Guam.”

*

By the time sunlight was little more than a memory, Kurou was reluctant to leave. He’d gotten quite comfortable with his legs in the sun and his face in the shade of a tree; so much so that the fading of warmth only began to sink in with the dark.

He’d intended to take back his recorder and make a quick exit but things had not gone so smoothly. After a long chase after an ever-nimble Neko, Kurou found himself unable to reject Kukuri’s request that he help her cut the cake she had bought, and soon enough he found himself relaxing and chatting until the day simply ticked away without his noticing.

If there was one thing he was truly glad of, it was having finally spent some time getting to know Hieda Tooru. He’d avoided the boy as much as possible, confused by the face that had used to look at him with big, sweet eyes with the occasional crafty gleam. Now, those same eyes alternated between timidness and boyish innuendo. Apparently Kukuri had thought to invite him, hoping that hanging out with some of the other kids would break him out of his solitary shell—and she had been right.

Long before the sun’s passing, Hieda was laughing and joking, and sending shy glances toward Neko who had a habit of sitting far too close to him or curling up at his legs. Not that she had any doubts as to the fact that he was not “Her Shiro” at all. She was simply comfortable with that body, having spent so much time curled up against it in cat form—or girl form, for that matter. The scent was the same even if the soul was not.

Reluctant to return to his state of worry and resignation—and feeling guilty for that reluctance—Kurou tried to bite the bullet and suggested they pack up before it got much cooler, but Kukuri had other plans.

“We can’t leave yet! I brought fireworks!”

“Fireworks? That sounds like fun!” enthused Hieda. Several others chimed in, and so it was determined.

To start with, Kukuri handed out the long thin sparkler strings that everyone could do together and they all crouched into a circle on a patch of dirt clear of grass or picnickers. As with most of the best-laid plans, there was a hold-up.

“I forgot to bring a lighter!” Kukuri wailed, frantically looking around the group for someone who seemed likely to carry one. Whether there were no smokers in the group, or the guys simply didn’t want to admit it in front of the straight-cut group of girls, nobody produced one.

“Will this do?”

At the sound of that voice, Kurou whipped around, just in time to catch a silver lighter that was tossed his way. He looked down at it, then back up at Munakata Reisi who was smiling indulgently.

“You’re a life saver!” cried Kukuri, jumping up from a crouch and offering up profuse thanks while Neko hissed in irritation at Kurou’s side.

“Is there a problem?” Kurou asked bluntly, unable to imagine any other reason why Munakata might appear before such a group in a public park. Dressed in casual clothing with a cigarette between his lips, he was clearly off work. “It’s not legal to smoke here,” Kurou added, spitting out the thought as it occurred to him. He winced, then, realizing that he was spouting the law to the law himself.

“Right you are,” Munakata agreed slowly, taking the cigarette from his mouth and dropping it to the dirt to stamp out. With an uncommonly self-conscious grin, he then picked up the diffused object and cupped it in his palm.

To Kurou’s surprise, Hieda leaped over with a half-full cup and offered it up as a sacrifice to safely store the offending object. “Thanks for the lighter man,” he said. “Do you want to join us?”

Laughing, Munakata thanked him for the offer but then tilted his head around the boy to make eye contact with Kurou. “Actually, I’d like to borrow Yatogami-kun if I may,” he said. “I can wait, though, if-”

“It’s fine,” Kurour told him, handing the lighter to Kukuri and straightening from his crouch. He gave his sparkler to Neko and assured her it was ok to light both—which was a mistake in retrospect.

As soon as he and Munkata had retreated far enough away that the group’s voices became a jumble of sounds that made no sense, a series of agitated shrieks, hisses, and cries pierced the settling night. He should have known Neko didn’t know what a firework was and what it meant to light one. Oh well. Kukuri had a way with her he could never aspire to.

Frowning at the ruckus and considering whether or not Kurou might be needed, Munakata eventually shrugged it off as the situation came under control and he re-focused his attention on Kurou instead. “Sorry to bother you while you’re having fun with your friends,” he apologized. “I was going to visit at the dorm but Fuse mentioned he saw you out here while on patrol.”

“You were looking for me, then,” Kurou reasoned, letting his tone form the question.

“There’s something I must discuss with you... but perhaps this is not the right time.” The last was spoken with a glance at the reveling students as Neko’s cries now registered awe and excitement over the colorful sparks leaping out of a can from which she kept her distance.

It did look like fun but the hesitation in Munakata’s tone was so out of place, Kurou immediately jumped to the worst conclusions, and several at once. The one he feared the most was that Shiro had been confirmed dead. Burying that thought as deep as he might, he found his second-largest fear somewhat easier to swallow in its wake. Munakata was breaking up with him. There were other possibilities, but he began to dwell more and more on that thought, putting pieces together from hunches and imagination.

“Is this about Fushimi Saruhiko?” he asked boldly. “Are you in love with him after all?”

Genuine surprise rippled across Munakata’s features. The look he cast at the group of students was panicked now, as if he wished he had chosen a better time and place. Privacy would have been nice, Kurou had to admit—but Ichigen-sama had been famous for putting people on the spot. As he would say: _There’s no time like the present._

“Yatogami-kun-”

“There it is. The distance you always put between us. You always knew it would come to this. I suppose I should have done as well.”

“I… hadn’t realized.” No confirmations or denials, just a sad realization of his own habit to use the formal surname that caused Kurou’s throat to choke up, putting an end to the angry rant that never quite got started. Nor was he able to say any of the various scraps of wisdom, condescension, or forgiveness that flickered through his mind too fast to follow. His voice was sealed. Apparently, so was Munakata’s, but the Blue king recovered first. “You and I are very alike. I love being with you and—you might not want to hear this, but—being with you saved me when I most needed…”

“What?” Kurou rasped, finally finding the dregs of his voice. His throat cleared as he clung to the scrap of anger inspired by that unfinished statement. “A warm body? A like mind? A substitute?”

“A friend.”

It wasn’t fair that he should feel ashamed by that statement but it was so truthful and heartfelt that he did. He found it increasingly hard to meet Munakata’s gaze and was even more ashamed for retreating and turning his eyes to the earth at his feet.

“Don’t walk ahead of me, for I may not follow. Don’t walk behind me, for I may not lead. Walk beside me and be my friend.”

“Beautiful words,” Munakata muttered.

“They’re not Ichigen-sama’s but he spoke them often enough,” Kurou responded pointlessly for lack of anything else to say.

“Then let me offer up words that I have never had the opportunity to speak,” Munakata said, raising Kurou’s chin easily with the tip of one long, elegant finger. “I would be honored if you would deign to remain my friend.”

As tears spilled over, Kurou finally gave over to the acceptance that what he had always known deep down was now coming to pass. He’d fallen for a man who was in love with someone else and it was his fault for ignoring his instincts. “It’s not that easy,” he appealed.

“If I thought you were one to quail at difficulty, I would not ask,” challenged the Blue king.

For just a moment, Kurou imagined a world in which he was a member of the Blue clan, Fushimi Saruhiko was a tried and proven Green, and Shiro was the evil Colorless king he had sworn to and succeeded to kill. For just a moment, a sense of equal satisfaction and despair rose up within him and his breath caught on it and held.

The epiphany had begun even before the words flew over his head—it began in the widening of Munakata’s eyes and the warmth at his back. No, it began before that, when he realized through his guilty imagining that a life without Shiro wasn’t worth living even if he could have anything else he wanted.

“You!”

“Me.”

“You’re back!”

“And not a moment too soon, it would appear.”

Unfamiliar hands came down on Kurou’s shoulders but the comfortable placement and the kindness in the slight squeeze lifted Kurou’s expectations more than he should have allowed. He did allow it, though, and when he turned, he wasn’t looking into the face of a stranger even if it was a new face.

“Shiro?”

“The one and only.”

The instinct to embrace his miraculously returned king came naturally but he simply couldn’t tear his eyes from that mature face—so new and so beautiful. As a result, he found his arms woven around tall shoulders and his body pressed against lithe muscles with his head tilted up as if waiting for a kiss. Before he could blush at the thought, a kiss was exactly what was bestowed upon him and he was too stunned to do anything but return it.

He was too distracted to notice as Munakata received a call and then dashed off in a hurry.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter snuck up on me out of nowhere. ^_^;

He wasn't so magnanimous as to feel no jealousy. In spite of his objective of breaking things off, Munakata was childishly reluctant to let Yatogami go, and even more reluctant to have him stolen away like this—and by a rival king, at that!  
   
Even so-  
   
The buzzing of Munakata's PDA broke his indecisive trance and he glanced down. Akiyama.  
   
“Can it wait?” he asked upon answering the call. At the least, he should say a few words to the Silver king once the two came back down to Earth and that blasted strain girl stopped whining for attention. He should wish the reunited clansmen all the best.  
   
“Hirasaka Douhan has escaped, assisted by Mishakuji Yukari!”  
   
For a moment, Munakata's mind went blank—then it revved into action with all of the facts neatly lined up for his perusal…  
   
“Saruhiko!”  
   
His feet shifted, but for just one moment he couldn't look away from the sight of Yatogami and his rightful king. Just one last selfish moment of regret. They were good together.  
   
Then he turned on the ball of his foot and strode off. Before long, he was running.  
   
*  
   
If life were a story book, Fushimi should be opening the curtains and singing to the beautiful blue sky. He should be cooking something delicious while alternatively laughing and humming to himself.  
   
Instead, he had struggled even to bully himself into taking a shower and now he lay listlessly on the couch, draped only in a towel, because he was avoiding the bed.  
   
It wasn't that he regretted having been with Munakata. He just felt that something was off. It was what he'd wanted but the timing wasn't right. The feelings weren't right.  
   
Was this just a result of having had expectations that were too high for reality to fulfill? He couldn't quite put his finger on what was missing so it was hard to tell.  
   
“Hi!”  
   
The singsong greeting startled Fushimi into immediate battle posture.   
   
“Mish... Hirasaka!” At first, he rushed toward her, but then he realized what it meant for her to be there and to have appeared so suddenly alongside a particular wanted criminal. “How?”  
   
“Shall we leave the details for another time? We're on a tight schedule here,” crooned the swordsman, even as he made a show of appraising Fushimi's exposed form. (The towel was lying in a forgotten puddle behind him.)  
   
Fushimi crossed his arms, not in the least phased by his nakedness. “I'm not going anywhere with you.”  
   
Mishakuji's glower was no doubt the prelude to a self-righteous lecture but Hirasaka pre-empted him and forestalled the angry words with an authoritative gesture to halt. She then took a sashaying step toward Fushimi and mirrored his posture, her crossed arms thrust outward from her body by her generous bosom.   
   
“That man betrayed you. What he did to me was bad enough—or do you disagree?” Though he might not have agreed to the previous statement out of principal, Fushimi found himself shaking his head because he couldn’t disagree with the fact that Hirasaka had been wronged. However, when he tried to speak up in Munakata’s defense, he was cut short by a derogatory sound. Seeing the spitting anger in Hirasaka’s eyes, he remembered his own incredulity when he first learned of their fates. While he had come to trust the man he loved somewhat, Hirasaka had no such motivation. “I risked my life for his cause—and for you. I saved you, and that meant something to him. Still, he threw me to the wolves with no regrets because in his mind, he owed me nothing. You, he certainly owed a duty to, and look where that got you.”  
   
“This is all just temporary, just for show!” Fushimi hissed, wary of his perpetual guards always outside that deceptive door that may as well have just been another smooth chunk of wall. “If you'd stayed put, I know he would have... He wouldn't...”  
   
“I'm afraid I don't have your remarkable capacity for misplaced faith.” The venom the tight, clipped words muttered under her breath proved that Hirasaka was truly angry, and she had every right to be. Whatever loopholes he claimed, Munakata had broken a contract of understanding by arresting her along with the other high-ranking JUNGLE members. Regardless, her expression softened. “Maybe you're half-right,” she conceded. “Maybe he would spare his lover—you are lovers, I presume.” Fushimi quailed under her gaze and his eyes slid past her to the adjoining wall through which she had infiltrated. “There's something I never told you. When I took the USB to him-“  
   
“Lovers!? You and the Blue king!? Oh, how precious! I was saving these for myself but I suppose you ought to take a peek,” crooned Mishakuji Yukari, far too loudly for Fushimi’s liking.  
   
He had no choice but to accept the PDA thrust into his hands. A photograph filled the screen: a regal back, bare and hunched in motion; silky raven hair strewn about the ecstatic face of Yatogami Kurou. “Beautifully captured even if I do say so myself. They do make for exquisite models.” The next 10 photos or so continued along the same theme, some exposing Munakata's features so that there could be no doubt as to who was Yatogami’s partner. The pictures after that showed Fushimi being walked back to the hotel the day of his unauthorized excursion. Unless Mishakuji was screwing with him—not to be ruled out—Munakata had been with Yatogami between then and the events of the previous night.  
   
It all clicked into place.  
   
“It doesn’t matter. This isn’t about…” _Our relationship_? Did they even have a relationship? _Cheating_? Can you cheat on someone with whom you don’t have a relationship? Can you be cheated on? “Us,” he summed up lamely.  
   
“Isn’t it?” Hirasaka asked, gently. “This is a matter of trust. Fushimi, I’m sorry. I knew they were sleeping together and kept that from you. I never thought it would continue after-”  
   
“And yet you tell me I should trust you over him?”  
   
“You would only have been hurt—and you might have died that way. But you’re right. You have reason to doubt me, too—but not Yukari.”  
   
“You have got to be kidding me.”  
   
“Munakata Reisi thrust you into danger then punished you for his own orders with imprisonment. On the other hand, Yukari has been working ever since to free you.”  
   
Scoffing, Mishakuji Yukari himself elegantly extended a hand before Fushimi. “I may be beautiful but I’m no angel. My motives are as broken as any—but she’s right about one thing. I’ve never lied to, misled, or manipulated you. Those are all very ugly things to do, don’t you agree?”  
   
Fushimi wasn’t one to be taken in by such pretty words… but he was curious to see what might happen if he took that outstretched hand. So he did. Slowly, and hesitantly, but he did.  
   
A knock at the door startled them all. Mishakuji’s sword was half drawn when Hirasaka grabbed him by the shoulder and dragged them both to the wall that adjoined with the bathroom of a room emptied for surveillance purposes.  
   
That was it. Fushimi’s choice had been made. Since it was too late to go back, he held on tight, knowing full well what could happened if he lost contact with his guide while passing through a solid obstacle. The moment he came out the other side, he was stuffed into an extremely close-fitting trench coat that reeked of floral scents and buttoned up to the neck then dragged off toward another wall, and so began a very long, tiring journey of unconventional routes and tense bouts of silence.  
   
*  
   
Awashima wasn’t supposed to fraternize with the prisoner—none of them were, and that included Munakata—but under orders, she would confess that she occasionally left her assigned post to spend some time with Fushimi. After all, if her hypothesis was correct, her job was not to be Fushimi’s jailer, but his protector, and that was even better fulfilled from by his side.  
   
Things had been quiet since her shift began. No music, no sounds of activity from within the hotel room that was basically an apartment complex. No signs of life. From what she’d heard, it had been like that all day. However, the sound of the television caught her attention and she thought maybe it was a good time to poke her head in and see what might have perked up the sulking grouch.  
   
Not that she had any reason to think he might be sulking except that a certain gossip had informed her that the captain had stayed the night and then left _very_ early in the morning—long before Fushimi would ever possibly be functional.  
   
The noise died out. Other than that, her knock received no response.  
   
Clearly, Fushimi was in no mood to make nice and be social. Then again, when was he ever?  
   
On the verge of barging in demanding a game of cards to give Fushimi something to occupy his all-too-active mind, Awashima started and grabbed at her PDA, fumbling and dropping it on the floor. She wasted a whole four seconds slapping a hand over her face and reflecting upon her pathetic clumsiness, then bent down to retrieve the device, noting the caller ID as she rose.  
   
The captain. He probably wanted her to go buy Fushimi some flowers—or some other frivolity equally as stupid.  
   
“Awashima,” she greeted, wearily.  
   
“Is he there?”  
   
“Who?”  
   
“Fushimi! Who else?”  
   
“Of course he is! Where else would he be?”  
   
Well, she was one of the only people who knew about that one time Fushimi had slipped out, so she could accede that her response was a little on the snarky side… but she had just interacted with him, in a way, so he obviously hadn’t pulled that stunt again. Just for the captain’s peace of mind, she decided to go in and check anyway. Maybe it would lift Fushimi’s spirits to hear that the captain was all in a flutter over him. Then again, maybe not. One could never tell with Fushimi.  
   
“Have you seen him? In the last five minutes? Is he still there?”  
   
Working the lock with one hand while she held the PDA to her ear, Awashima frowned. Munakata was too panicked—too ruffled.  
   
“I heard the TV a minute ago but he shut it off when I knocked. Hang on. I’m inside… Fushimi!” No response. No sign of him in the living room but a towel on the floor. “Fushimi?” She poked her head into the bedroom and then knocked on the bathroom door before cracking it open. “Fushimi!”  
   
By the time she remembered the captain was on the line, he had already hung up.  
   
*  
   
“ _This is wrong. I should go back. I'm sure Reisi-pon has an explanation for everything just like he always does._ _”_  
   
Aside from the absurd nickname, Hirasaka's deep-voiced impression of Fushimi's internal turmoil was gallingly accurate. Not that he would give her the satisfaction of admitting it.  
   
“I made my choice. It's too late for regrets.”  
   
Cue the bad prose:  
   
“On the contrary, regret only exists when the right time has come and gone.”  
   
“Stuff it, Yukari.”  
   
The narcissist laughed, perfectly buffered by over-confidence. “I'd be offended by your tone if you hadn't just called me by my given name for the first time.”  
   
“Don't read into it,” Fushimi growled.   
   
“Might as well tell me to close my eyes and stumble around blind—now there's something we haven't tried! I wonder which of us would look sexier in a blindfold?”  
   
Fushimi was genuinely in lament of his spur-of-the-moment defection. He was even beginning to miss Munakata's over-cautious manner, as if he were some kind of fragile...   
   
A rush of bitterness churned him up and he found himself blocking out images of the man he loved shagging that scrawny little dog. Seeking a target for his festering discord, he turned on Yukari. “Do you seriously need me to explain that I used you for information?” He thought of the delicate-seeming swordsman busting through walls to try and reach him at the infirmary. He thought of those photographs that indicated careful planning and dedication on his behalf… He thought of those photographs that broke his heart. “I endured you fucking me for a few tips and some cred. That's it. There's nothing more I need from you. Whatever you imagined would happen-”  
   
“I've imagined all kinds of things—I look forward to narrating them to you—but I have no illusions as to what I am to you.” Rising from the patch of tatami upon which he had been stretched out, browsing through a tourism pamphlet, Yukari glided over to Fushimi’s cushion at the little tea table. “I also know what I could be—and what you do need, admit it or not,” he finished, settling himself on top of Fushimi’s crossed thighs.  
   
“You're delusional,” Fushimi retorted. Just because he still found Yukari alluring didn’t mean he would ever give in to the kinds of urges he had indulged in under drastic circumstances. That phase was over.  
   
“I prefer the term motivational,” Yukari murmured, lifting his finger with majestic grace to stroke Fushimi’s nose and trail down over pursed lips.  
   
“Those words aren't even close to relating!” fumed the near-forgotten Hirasaka. “If you're done with me, I'll go plan my future in Guam so you little hate-birds can have your twisted fun,” she sneered, slamming down the complimentary cup of tea she had been nursing since calling Fushimi out on his second thoughts.  
   
“Suits me,” Yukari crooned.  
   
Fushimi glared at him, almost waiting too long to say, “Don't go.” Hirasaka stopped with her hand on the door handle. It was embarrassing to know she could read the sincerity in his tone and recognized the rarity of it. “Besides,” he covered, “You need me to hack into your frozen accounts if you plan to kick back in Guam.”  
   
It was hard to smirk over at her with Yukari hanging off his neck and leaning back to observe the exchange.  
   
Following Fushimi’s lead and ignoring the swordsman, Hirasaka turned and leaned back against the door.  
“Do that and I might just spring for two,” she suggested.  
   
“Nonsense,” Yukari cut in brightly. “We can't leave Saruhiko behind. I'm sure the compensation for your treachery will comfortably stretch to three. Or have you forgotten to whom you owe your freedom?”  
   
Expecting another sneer, Fushimi was surprised by the inviting transformation that overcame Hirasaka’s features. Slowly, she stalked back toward them, reaching down to Yukari’s hair and curling the two-toned locks in her fist. Then she yanked his neck back and planted her lips forcefully against his.  
   
“That’s all the thanks you get,” she said in a low, dangerous voice. “I’m not in the habit of sharing.”  
   
Was it recklessness that made Fushimi hope she was talking about him? Was it vindictiveness that made him want Yukari to capitalize on the growing sexual tension? Was he that pissed off at Munakata? …That hurt?  
   
He’d been through hell and back and done everything in his power to survive, no matter how low. Hirasaka had been his one safe harbor, Yukari his guilty pleasure. It was so easy to slip back into the justified freedom of those days, doing all the things a dutiful soldier and government employee could never do. Here he was, on the run with two admittedly beautiful and highly erotic individuals, the man he loved was a whoring son-of-a-bitch, and he had nothing to return to but resumed incarceration at best.  
   
He would just sit there day in, day out, like a doll on the shelf, waiting for Munakata to take him down to play without realizing there was another, more cherished doll in another room. Free, he could be the one taking the dolls up in his hands, admiring them and ordering them; stripping them down and dressing them back up in his own preferred colors. They were his to pamper and his to punish, both of them. There was no need to be the powerless one again.  
   
“Make an exception,” he said to Hirasaka, leaning back against the wall and gesturing for Yukari to close the distance. All-too-willing, Yukari was quickly wrapped up in the kiss, welcoming Fushimi’s delving tongue and the light graze of teeth. Fushimi, however, was only half invested, challenging Hirasaka with his unrelenting gaze even as he borrowed her move and pulled Yukari’s hair back, deepening the angle with a powerful sense of control that went straight to his head.  
   
Releasing his grip on the silky strands, Fushimi deliberately brushed Yukari’s hair off his neck and toward one shoulder, suggesting with his eyes that Hirasaka should take advantage of the opening. She considered for a moment, and Fushimi closed his eyes, reaching beneath Yukari’s shirt to caress impossibly smooth skin and compact muscles. He wasn’t in the least surprised when he felt her presence at his side and Yukari craned his head further to facilitate the light brush of her lips on his neck.  
   
He cried out into the kiss and Fushimi knew she’d nipped him just as he’d predicted. He didn’t really care if his dolls didn’t play nice with each other.  
   
Breaking the kiss, he pulled Yukari’s face down to the collar of the trench coat he still wore with nothing beneath. It wasn’t long before his chest was exposed and tongue and teeth took to his skin with relish. Meanwhile, Hirasaka watched with an uncertain waver in her eyes.  
   
“You saw them,” Fushimi gasped as Yukari’s teeth skimmed over his nipple. Hirasaka nodded. “Like this,” he clarified, craning his neck as the crown of Yukari’s head bumped against his adam’s apple.  
   
“Yes,” she whispered, her demeanor apologetic.  
   
Fushimi pre-empted any words of sympathy or regret. “It turned you on, didn’t it?” he pushed.  
   
Keeping an eye on Yukari, Hirasaka warily leaned in to capture Fushimi’s lips in a mild kiss that he transformed by sucking on the tip of her tongue until she crushed her lips against his more fiercely and kissed him in earnest. By then, Yukari was already sucking on Fushimi’s cock and he soon lost himself in a whirl of two-fold sensations; long, sharp nails and neat trimmed ones; color-stained traces of lips and teeth-shaped indents in his skin; a soft, crackling halo of blond that tickled and dark silk that stimulated.  
   
To make up for his unimpressive showing the last time they had been together, Fushimi made sure that Hirasaka lay between the two men; a plan with which Yukari was happy to comply. The intimate sensation of brushing against one another from different sides of a membrane and the proof of what that did to a loudly moaning Hirasaka had both Fushimi and Yukari on edge through five powerful orgasms.  
   
Shuddering, Hirasaka pushed Fushimi back and crawled away from Yukari, drawing her knees up and taking deep, trembling breaths as her body continued to process the un-abating aftereffects of such stimulation. Watching like a hawk, Fushimi pulled Yukari down to his crotch by the hair and made the swordsman lick up the mingled flavors before licking his ass. After a good tongue-fucking, Fushimi orderedYukari onto his back and eased himself down, his eyes flicking between Yukari’s enraptured expression and Hirasaka’s almost shy gaze as her fingers wrung what dregs of pleasure might remain or be sparked by the view from her exhausted body.  
   
“Look at me,” Yukari demanded.  
   
Startled by the frank command, Fushimi did as requested and was suddenly pulled into a dark gaze that he felt like he was seeing for the first time. Yukari’s fingers molded to his cheek and a gentle rolling motion stimulated him from within.  
   
He’d expected Yukari to make another demand but it was all there in his eyes, instead: A request to be taken seriously. A petition not to be shrugged off like so much bother. A heartfelt need to be wanted by someone for who he was inside as much as the exterior. A conviction that Fushimi could live up to those needs.  
   
Bracing himself on hands framing Yukari’s splayed hair, Fushimi answered with his hips, rolling slowly and deliberately until a gasp slipped from his own lips. Gradually, the pace increased until they moved together in a steady rhythm. It was more intense than he could have anticipated, and he choked up with tears because it reminded him so strongly of the night just passed which now seemed so unreal, like a scene from a movie, except that the sensation had been genuine.  
   
Burying his face in Yukari’s neck to hide the emotion, Fushimi rode himself to completion and tried not to think of the man he might never see again and would probably never forgive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The end.
> 
> ...Just kidding. That would be cruel.


	12. Chapter 12

   
The regular turn-down service was canceled, the maid detained as a precaution. As a result, the bed remained a mess of sheets and blankets with questionable stains, all with a scent of sweat and sex... and Fushimi. How could so little time have passed since Munakata had lain beside him in that very bed? How could his scent remain when he was long gone?  
   
Unable to stand the sense that Fushimi was somehow just moments out of his reach, Munakata made a point of leaving the hotel to the return to headquarters. He summoned Awashima and had his officers standing by for an emergency meeting, but first, there were things that must be said in private.  
   
"That idiot!" Awashima repeated yet again. "He would have been released in a matter of weeks if not days!" She sank at last into the chair across from the one in which Munakata sat, gripping the edge of his desk with fingers as wooden as the material it was made of. "Now he'll be hunted down like a criminal and the government will get their scapegoat and swallow him alive." By the time she finished speaking, there was nothing but raw despair in her tone. She truly couldn't see any other path but to do this duty.  
   
"Unless we don't," Munakata pointed out.  
   
"Captain?"  
   
She didn't even understand what he was saying.  
   
"We don't hunt him down," Munakata elaborated. "We let him escape."  
   
"Captain..."  
   
The whisper was caught somewhere between horror and hope. She stared at him, holding her breath and waiting.  
   
"He saved the world," Munakata reminded her. "I won't let them make him pay for it any more than he already has."  
   
Slowly rising to her feet, Awashima began to pace out her thoughts which had begun to move once more. "And Mishakuji Yukari? Hirasaka Douhan?" She sounded skeptical.  
   
Munakata sat back in his chair, steepling his fingers and watching her reaction carefully to gauge how much of a chance he might have of saving his already lost love. "They're no longer a threat."  
   
"You don't know that-"  
   
Adjusting his glasses, Munakata played it cool, as if he had no doubts at all—he was bluffing, obviously. "If Mishakuji had plans for revenge, he would never have sacrificed Gojou. He freed Hirasaka to get to Fushimi. Now, all he wants is a way out."  
   
"Why?" Awashima demanded, meeting his gaze head on in a way that few others could. Fushimi was one of those... "Why Fushimi? There's no reason. Not unless he's planning-"  
   
"There's every reason." He understood better than anyone else possibly could what Mishakuji was thinking. It didn't matter that Fushimi had betrayed him, only that Fushimi had been his for a short time. More importantly, Fushimi been punished by the very source of the betrayal and that was even more unforgivable than the act of betrayal itself. It didn't matter that Fushimi would not have chosen him otherwise, only that Fushimi was in need of him and thus vulnerable, open to exploring what had begun... "Mishakuji went after the one thing his heart is set on. Now, he just has to whisk it safely away."  
   
Little fazed Awashima, but that gave her pause. She gaped and asked in a tense, quiet voice, "Captain, are you claiming that Mishakuji Yukari is in love with Fushimi?"  
   
Munakata thought of Fushimi's confession of the dark, masochistic relations he had shared with Mishakuji while undercover. He didn't know. He didn't know if it was possible for someone like that to love, or for Fushimi to love that kind of man in return... He didn't know, and that ignorance clawed at him. "Love, obsession, who knows? But Fushimi left with him, of his own free will. If this is what he chooses, then I won't stand in his way."  
   
"He wasn't forced," Awashima agreed, "But that doesn't mean he wasn't co-erced. I can't believe he would-"  
   
"He might," Munakata whispered. "If he knew he had reason to doubt..."  
   
"Doubt what!?"  
   
"Me."  
   
*  
   
"What are you wasting time here for, lass?" As smug as ever, the bar-tender placed a coaster down and slid a martini glass atop it, getting on with the order she hadn't yet made while the question lingered in the air. "I thought your captain would have you all out scouring the city."  
   
"You mean like those street rats of yours are doing right now?" she retorted, crossing one leg over the other and planting her elbow on the bar. Tendrils of hair fell down along her arm as she tilted her head, supporting it with a wrist too strong to be truly feminine and hiding her sword-worn nails in her hair. Why did she have to feel so self-conscious before this man? He would never be interested in her that way...  
   
"Takes one to know one," Kusanagi joked with a shrug and a smirk. At first she thought he meant her but that was just absurd. She belatedly twigged that he was implying Fushimi still had more of Homra in him than anyone else would be willing to admit.  
   
The stem of the finished martini found its way between her fingers and she raised it to her lips, then paused and lowered it. "Drink with me."  
   
"If you say so."  
   
Soon, Kusanagi was leaning over the bar, dangling a glass of scotch from his finger-tips. He was watching her and it made her feel awkward. She played with the stem, twisting this way and that.  
   
"Is it easier?" she asked. "Now that he's gone... Is it easier living without him?"  
   
Delaying his reply, Kusanagi clinked the bottom of his glass against the rim of hers. "You get it. That sucks. I wish you wouldn't."  
   
"Does it make you uncomfortable?" she asked, raising her glass and waiting for a moment. When he didn't respond right away, she took a mouthful and savored the sweet burn.  
   
"Seri-chan... A lot of things make me uncomfortable, but you'll never be one of 'em. But, ya know, I was talking about him. That captain of yours. We both sat on the sidelines and watched those two idiots tear each other apart. We've got that in common."  
   
"That's why..."  
   
"Yeah. I know. Don't let it get to you. We are what we are. You got it real hard, though, I'll admit. Fushimi don't know how lucky he is."  
   
"That _idiot_!"  
   
The crack of the glass hitting the counter only took her aback for a moment but it wasn't broken, just loud. She passed a hand over her eyes as if to wipe away some of the weary strain. "You should have seen him, Kusanagi. He thinks he's a closed book but there's graffiti all over him showing how heartbroken he is. After Mikoto... I thought he'd never be whole again but he was so close... Fushimi needed him just as much. What went wrong?"  
   
"If I had to guess, I'd say Fushimi found out about Munakata's little pet..."  
   
"...Pet? What are you…? The black dog?"  
   
"Ahuh. That happened."  
   
"No."  
   
"Yep. Went on for ages, even after Fushimi got back. I'm shocked you didn't know."  
   
"That idiot... No, I really mean it. I've loved him for as long as I've known him but he keeps falling for the wrong people and now that he finally found someone he belongs with... What the hell was he thinking, sabotaging that?"  
   
"Men are idiots, don'tcha know? I know I am! Or else, I'd have jumped your bones long ago!"  
   
At that, she snorted. "Maybe if I had a penis. And flaming red hair. And a reckless streak as big as my ego."  
   
"I told ya. Each and every one. Idiots."  
   
"Kusanagi... Our hands are tied. You have to find him. The captain... He won't let any harm come to Fushimi but if we can bring him home before it costs us all our jobs..."  
   
"You know what they say: If you love something, set it free. Fushimi will come back on his own, and if he doesn't... then he deserves a bit of freedom."  
   
"I don't think... Even if we turn a blind eye, how can they possibly get away?"  
   
"Isn't that why you got sent here? Or didn't you know? The Silver king has a message for his pal, the Blue king... He's parking his airship for a few days and he expects it to be guarded personally by Scepter 4."  
   
"Oh, you have got to be joking."  
   
"I would never."  
   
"You're all-"  
   
"Idiots?"  
   
"Imbeciles!”  
   
Munakata might be leaning towards aiding and abetting an escaped criminal, but surely there was no way he would actually let Fushimi run off with that personified peacock! Worse, ship them off on their jailbreak honeymoon together!  
   
*  
   
"You’re so hot when you’re angsting."  
   
The words were a far-off buzz at the edge of his consciousness, the vast majority of which was hovering among the stars. Out here, removed from the city, the night sky was a living entity, its breath traveling eons to puff against Fushimi’s skin and set it tingling with a thrill of anticipation. Fushimi felt as though he could simply merge with that ancient creature; float up into the air and through the atmosphere, and become absorbed into the deep, blanketing void. Perhaps, in a thousand years, he might evolve into a small spark of a star as seen from Earth.  
   
Or, he might have done, if _someone_  weren’t so determined to disrupt his rare, spiritual experience. A tug, as Yukari’s fingers caught in his hair, drew him back into himself, back into the Earthbound realm of physicality and complicated feelings.  
   
"Maybe I should develop a sunny disposition," he responded belatedly with a sigh.  
   
A sound of derision escaped Yukari’s throat. "You’d annoy yourself to death before you put me off," he reasoned—quite rightly. "In fact, it would be amusing; kind of like watching you saw off your own toes."  
   
"How would  _that_  be amusing?" Fushimi asked, horrified.   
   
"Where do you go?"  
   
"What?"  
   
Sometimes Yukari changed track so fast it was like blinking and missing a snake striking.  
   
"I never figured you for the fanciful type but you go off on these long sojourns all in your own mind and I feel lonely, right here next to you." Despite the hard cement beneath their bodies, Yukari rolled onto his side, propping his long neck in his hand, and looking unfathomably elegant and comfortable. "Do you fantasize about him?"  
   
"I don't fantasize about anything," Fushimi snapped defensively. "It's just better to escape my skin sometimes; to be anywhere but here."  
   
"I hate him."  
   
"I don't really give a-"  
   
"Shut up."  
   
Fushimi shut up. It was the first time Yukari had spoken to him so crudely outside of their more carnal relations.  
   
"I blamed you for taking it all away from us, for using me, even for treating yourself like expendable goods. At first, I did, but then I worked it out. He sent you in there to use yourself up and die."  
   
"He gave me a way out-"  
   
"He used you. It was hideous thing to do."  
   
It was an older insecurity, one he had thought he had come to terms with, but it still hurt. He had all the counter arguments memorized, but he was tired of defending Munakata to himself, or to anyone else. He remained silent and returned his gaze to the stars, listening passively for whatever else Yukari had to say.  
   
"You're not the only one. He took advantage of someone else I... have an interest in."  
   
"The Black Dog."  
   
"An awful nickname, if you ask me," Yukari scorned. "But apt. "  
   
"It must have begun while I was with JUNGLE," Fushimi muttered, voicing and thus actualizing thoughts that had only been conceptualized so far. "I thought about him more than I should have done, then—all the time, really. Fucking you, seducing Nagare..." Only to Yukari could he voice that particular nightmare aloud, if at all. "Somewhere inside, I think it felt like betrayal of some unacknowledged promise between he and I. All the while, he had his little piece on the side." Yukari shifted uncomfortably at that term of address but Fushimi felt a spike of satisfaction trash-talking the mutt who had gotten in the way of... everything. He rolled his head to face Yukari and said simply, "I loved him—probably for longer than I realized. I thought he loved me, too."  
   
"He probably does," Yukari muttered surprisingly. "People are more complicated than that. Love or apathy, hate or admiration... I hate him. But if I'm honest, I'm a little in awe of him, as well. I can see why you fell for him, even if he is a pompous ass."  
   
"You're one to talk."  
   
"At least I'm an honest pompous ass. What I want to know is: can you do it? Can you leave him behind?"  
   
"I don't have a choice."  
   
"Sure you do."  
   
"He took that choice away from me."  
   
Yukari rolled his eyes. "He cheated on you. He didn't kill your mother. You're not really one to take the moral high ground where it comes to sleeping around."  
   
"Like you said, he used me." Bitterly, Fushimi barked out a laugh. That wasn’t even the half of it! "He locked me up for saving the world; and while he had me caged, he seduced me heart and soul—while he was with someone else the whole time. It's not that he was banging Yatogami—it's that he played me. I'm done with being trodden over like a plush carpet."  
   
"Maybe, but you still love him. I want to hear you admit it."  
   
"Why? So you can wallow in self-pity?"  
   
"Why would I do that?"  
   
Fushimi just gazed blankly at him, implying plenty.  
   
"It’s not like that… I’m not like that."  
   
"Don’t make me argue that I know better," Fushimi murmured. For the first time in a while, he really looked at Yukari—past the pretty hair and the defensive walls. He saw the subtle creases around a mouth conditioned to bitter smiles and sarcastic smirks. He saw the faint foreshadowing of bristles where eyebrows had been groomed into smooth lines ideal for portraying skepticism and derision without much forehead-lining motion. “Why?" he whispered, suddenly desperate for the one piece of the puzzle that kept eluding him. "Why me?"  
   
"Because you’re like me," Yukari responded immediately. "You’re prettier when you’re broken."  
   
"Do you ever wonder…" Fushimi paused, waiting for Yukari to pick up the thread—expecting it. It was obvious how that sentence should end, so Yukari’s silence was obtuse and irritating. "If I really had joined JUNGLE…" Damn him. Damn him to hell. "What would it have been like? Where would we be now?"  
   
"No. Do you? Because that, I’d find interesting."  
   
“No." He was lying. Naturally, Yukari knew so, too.  
   
"Saru would have overthrown Nagare, Tsukuna would have turned into his faithful lapdog, the Blues would be discredited and disgraced through ingenious digital campaigns, and the Reds would be a flaming mess because it would have just been so damned easy. Oh, and you, Yukari, would be chained to a stone wall like some mindless sex slave, died of neglect, and been thrown away."  
   
Fushimi wasn’t sure whether to be amused or disturbed by that assessment. He sat up, taking in the sight of Hirasaka in a yukata, her golden hair flowing loosely down her shoulders and almost glowing in the star-shine. "You’ve put some thought into that, huh?"  
   
"What can I say? ‘Evil Fushimi’ is a hot fantasy. In case you’re wondering, I’m your right hand and I get to fuck Yukari with a strap-on when you’re in the mood for a show."  
   
"Did you get the fakes?"  
   
"Yeah, but we won’t need passports when we have a private fancy blimp. The Silver king just touched down and he's shockingly complacent. I have all the information we need to walk right in and steal his airship right under his nose."  
   
"That’s ridiculous," Yukari argued. “How-"  
   
"Its stealth systems are the best in the world, its flight paths are projected to security based on onboard settings, and it’s not even guarded at present because jurisdiction is a complete mess in the decline of the clans. We can walk right in and then float right off and nobody will be able to stop us or find us. It’s the perfect getaway vehicle and an even better hideout."  
   
"It beats Guam for defensibility," Fushimi reasoned aloud.  
   
Yukari looked thoughtful. "Just fly away in our own private hanging garden, floating around the stratosphere…"  
   
Both men mulled that over for a while, until the deadly beauty tilted his head to the side and ran his eyes up and down the length of Hirasaka’s yukata-clad figure. It was kind of cute how comfortable those two had become with one-another. "Think we could get a strap-on delivered to mid-air GPS co-ordinates?"  
   
Fushimi snorted. "I’ll bet you that thing is fully stocked. So what’s the plan? Convince me this will work."


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've never planned very far ahead in this fic but every time I came up with an idea that was supposed to be a nice, neat, and tidy end, Yukari has gotten in the way and taken things in an even more complicated direction. This chapter is no different...

Fushimi was suspicious from the very beginning. There weren't any outright signs or even any concealed ones. It was simply too convenient. It was exactly the trap he would have set... only he would have done it with more finesse.   
   
Hisa was convinced. It was her intel after all, and she planned accordingly. Whether or not Yukari believed it, he went along without much protest. Fushimi suspected he was a bit bored of all the hiding and would welcome a fight if it came down to that.  
  
Himself... He wanted Munakata to come after him. He had no reason to think it would be anything but a sad game of cops and robbers where he was the robber for real this time and it wasn't a game anymore... but he so wanted it to be something different. He wanted Munakata to be desperate and remorseful and be plotting to save him from his evil captors... and he wanted to break the man's heart with the revelation that he wasn't messing around this time. He was turning coat for real. Again.  
   
Yukari and Hisa were his now and he was going to turn this trap into an opportunity and get them all out safe and sound.  
   
But that wasn't how it went down—because it wasn't a trap at all.  
   
They surveyed, they scouted, they lurked, they lured... but there was no-one there, no-one waiting to catch them unawares and haul them off to prison. In the end, Yukari just rolled his eyes and walked out onto the airfield, right up to the airship. There were even stairs for boarding politely set in place from the recent disembarking and maintenance, and he just waltzed right up them and did a showy little pirouette at the top.  
   
"Can we go now?" he called.  
   
Hisa shrugged and walked out onto the airfield. She was clearly still wary, as was her nature, but she reached the stairs safely and Fushimi followed as she was halfway up.  
   
Just because it wasn't a trap didn't mean it wasn't a set-up.  
   
"Saruhiko."  
   
That calm, deep voice incited a knowing shiver down Fushimi's spine.  
   
"Stay. Please. You don't have to run. Let them leave without you."  
   
He didn't turn around. He forced his feet to resume their forward motion.  
   
"I'd offer you a dramatic ultimatum but you're way too good at stabbing me in the back, Munakata Reisi."  
   
In a way, it was exactly what he had wanted and without all the hassle of fighting off a whole troop—but it also disturbed him that his assessment had been off. Munakata had never believed he was taken. He knew Fushimi was on the run of his own choice and he seemed to almost accept that choice.  
   
Footsteps at his back warned him that Munakata was following but he kept walking sedately. He was a few steps from the stairs.  
   
"Let me go," he said softly so that only the two of them could hear the words in that wide open space that swallowed sound. "I'm done being used and lied to, done being deceived. Just let me go."  
   
He had one foot on the stair and almost lost his balance when Yukari somersaulted to land just behind him, fending off the man who was just about to lunge for his arm. The sword work was quick and clean, and even Munakata couldn't react in time without his sword drawn and at the ready. When Fushimi turned fully to study the scene, he was disturbed by how limply Munakata's arm hung and at how little blood there was.  
   
"Back off," the pretty swordsman snarled.  
   
"Yukari!" Fushimi hissed.  
   
"Get on the damn blimp," Yukari ordered him aggressively, with full confidence that Fushimi's intention to do so hadn't altered an iota.  
   
Truthfully, Fushimi didn't know what he might have done if he had been given the opportunity to speak at that moment.  
   
"Captain!"  
   
"Take me with you."  
   
The shriek and a streak of color as Awashima burst into sight followed closely by Kusanagi were nearly overshadowed by the shock Fushimi experienced at hearing Munakata's earnest request.  
   
"Please," continued the former Blue king. "I'm tired of this never-ending spiral of politics and lies. I want to be free of it, too. I want to be with you. Please. Take me with you."  
   
Again, Fushimi was frozen with indecision born of shock. It was Yukari who, with a frustrated growl, grabbed the captain of Scepter 4 by his injured arm and hauled him around in a smooth motion, bringing his sword to rest at a fine throat and stopping Awashima and Kusanagi in their tracks.  
   
"Go? Or stay?" he asked, without looking back at Fushimi. "One way or another, he'll be coming with me, so make your choice."  
   
The nuance wasn't lost on Fushimi. Go, and Munakata was their hostage... Stay and he died.  
   
It was a stupid ultimatum. Fushimi didn't want to stay and despite it all, he didn't want Munakata dead, either. He was going to leave anyway so why did Yukari have to be such a dramatic prick about it all?  
   
Just to heighten the dramatic tension, the airship began to groan and whoosh with life. Only then did Fushimi realize that Hisa must have gotten the hatch open and dashed inside a while ago. She was quick on her feet, that one. Their escape was nigh.  
   
"Come on!" Fushimi snapped in exasperation.  
   
Moments later, they were inside with Munakata draped at their feet clutching at his abused and ruined arm and gritting his teeth at the ground. The ship took some time to ease into motion and by the time it finally began to rise, Fushimi knew they were going to have some stow-aways. That wasn't his immediate concern, though. Hisa would be able to monitor the interior of the vessel so when the two former clan lieutenants found their way inside, his would know about it. The immediate problem was a badly injured ex who he was now stuck with until they could dump somewhere.  
   
"I must say, I never saw _that_ coming," drawled Yukari.  
   
"Dear Reisi is full of surprises," Fushimi muttered in as flat a voice as could be. "Keep him out of trouble," he went on to order before striding off.  
   
"Saruhiko! Wait, please!"  
   
"Shut your mouth. He's not interested, and I would rather listen to a drill than hear you whine."  
   
"Saruhiko! I won't give up! Sooner or later you will—Ah!—hear me!"  
   
"Slicing out a tongue isn't pretty work but it would be worth it. I could even make a little show of it. What do you say, Saru?"  
   
"Just ignore him," Fushimi sighed. "That's my plan."  
   
The interior of the airship was fancier than he had imagined, like some kind of expensive mansion. It was also larger than one realized when it came to navigating from one end to the other. Luckily, the entrance was halfway down so getting to the cockpit wasn't so bad. Fushimi shed his captive/captor team along the way.   
   
Leaning against the cockpit door, he took a moment to admire the woman who had gotten their heist airborne with no prior training. That was supposed to have been his job.  
   
"I'll set the course," he said. Keep an eye on the monitors.  
   
"They're motion sensitive," she said, with some surprise. "It's quite clever."  
   
"You're clever," Fushimi told her, smugly proud. He could almost sense her blush as he improvised his way around the navigation console.   
   
Awkard with compliments, Hirasaka blatantly changed the subject. "Yukari's furious, you know. He's not treating your captain gently."  
   
"Former captain."  
   
"King, then."  
   
"Former king. Former friend. Former lover. Soon to be former problem."  
   
"What will you do with him?" she asked, her tone oddly mild.  
   
Fushimi shrugged. "I'd throw him overboard but-"  
   
"Don't," she said softly. "Don't pretend you don't care. Whatever it is, his being here means something to you."  
   
It was strange, the way his vision blurred and his cheeks felt wet. So strange.  
   
"He never came after me... Mikoto. You did, and Yukari did, and that meant more than you can ever know. I don't know what it means that Reisi did."  
   
"Yukari will never allow him to join us."  
   
"I didn't say I wanted that."  
   
"Maybe, but if it comes down to choosing him or us, I'm afraid you'll choose wrong."  
   
"I already made that choice," Fushimi grunted, none-to-happy with being second-guessed.  
   
"They did it on his desk. Right there in his office. No hesitation, no scruples... no love, either. It was just sex. Maybe they became friends, but it was never about the emotion."  
   
"Why tell me this now?"  
   
"Because I care about you. And I don't think you'll be any happier if you let Yukari abuse him."  
   
After a while, Fushimi turned away from the console he'd finished with minutes ago, closed the distance with Hirasaka, and kissed her tenderly.  
   
"It was never just about Yatogami," he said, even as a dormant screen flickered to life and caught his attention. "Anyway, right now, we have guests to deal with. Come on."   
   
Curiously, the camera wasn't focused on an exterior room but rather a corridor through the ship. Fushimi noted the significance; that the cameras in whatever section the two hitch-hikers had entered from were deactivated so that their motion was only just picked up as they passed into a section that was properly monitored. Had they known where to enter to avoid immediate detection or had they gotten lucky? Fushimi contemplated the variables as he swept into the grand ballroom that opened onto the night itself with both stars and city lights glimmering attendance.  
   
Yukari had taken Munakata there a short while ago and when Fushimi had left the cockpit, things had just been getting interesting onscreen. He should have known leaving his... former lover... alone in Yukari's keeping would lead to the nymphomaniac taking advantage sooner or later. Even so, the rate at which he worked astounded even Fushimi.  
   
The swordsman had his back to the spectacular view, his neck arched and tilted like a swan basking in the moonlight. One hand rested on Munakata's cheek in a semblance of affection. The other was curled around the braided leather handle of his sword—the weapon itself lovingly caressing the nape of his enemy's neck.  
   
The proud captain of Sceptre 4 didn't seem to be aware of the threat. He certainly wasn't phoning in the task he had been appointed, judging by the rapture on Yukari's face.  
   
It shouldn't be such a surprise, Fushimi decided. He was a whore. He'd always been a whore. He just presented himself in such an authoritative, respectable manner that people failed to see it. Not that Fushimi could talk, but he still felt betrayed. Munakata Reisi was supposed to be the better man that he looked up to—the one worthy of his service. Now, seeing how eagerly he took to blowing Yukari even under duress, Fushimi wondered how many others there had been. Did it begin and end with the Black Dog? Had he been cheating on Mikoto all along, too? Just that relationship itself testified to Munakata's promiscuity. How two sworn enemies so different in every way could...  
   
No wonder he'd so easily accepted all that Fushimi had done under cover. He'd probably even expected it.  
   
Well, let Munakata's little lapdogs find him sucking off the villain. What did Fushimi care? In fact, he ought to give Yukari a pat on the back for this devious revenge.  
   
Well, it would have been fun... if Yukari hadn't seen Fushimi then, his eyes going wide as the voyeurism flicked all his switches and he came hard down Munakata's throat. Coughing and spluttering, Munakata fell backward, hastily leaning toward his good arm to catch himself.  
   
Yukari hummed and tucked himself back into his pants, winking at Fushimi. Then, he looked down at Munakata, kicked him square across the face, and sent him flying across the floor, halfway to Fushimi's feet.  
   
There was a stern silence into which Fushimi's heart pounded thunderously. Sometimes, he forgot what a psycho Yukari could be.  
   
Munakata lay face down, one arm limp under him, the other sprawled out. He was still for just long enough that Fushimi felt choked. He tried to breathe and failed, so instead, he took a step forward, his toes dragging. Just as he overbalanced and began to break into a run, Munakata brought his good arm under him and raised his upper body with some difficulty. He looked up, his eyes accusing, boring through Fushimi and stopping him in his tracks.  
   
"This wasn't the deal," Munakata hissed, pain in every syllable.  
   
Laughter rang out, vivid and keen like a self-righteous bell at dawn. "You think you're in a position to make deals?" Yukari sang gleefully, advancing with sword in hand.  
   
Fushimi might have finally put an end to the violence then but he was momentarily overcome by a wave of sickness. This was his fault. He'd been so blinded by the sense of injustice and a selfish need to cling to hate that he had almost believed he wanted to see Munakata beaten and broken.   
   
How wrong he was, and how late to discover it. It didn't matter if Munakata was a whore or a saint, if he slept with three people or three hundred. Fushimi loved him—more than he would ever love anyone else. Hirasaka was safe, Yukari was within his control, but Munakata... Reisi could hurt him and that paralyzed him, disguising love as hate, fear as wrath. Now, if he didn't move, Yukari might just act on those twisted impulses and kill the only man Fushimi had ever truly loved, expecting to be praised for it...  
   
In the moment that his body froze and sickness washed over him, Fushimi heard the exchange on a loop in his head; every pained and jubilant inflection, every gasp and hitch, every elated tremolo...  
   
_"This wasn't the deal."_  
  
_"You think you're in a position to make deals?"_  
  
_"This wasn't the deal."_  
  
_"You think you're in a position to make deals?"_  
  
_"This wasn't the deal."_  
  
_"You think you're in a position to make deals?"_  
  
_"He wasn't talking to you."_  
   
The still unfamiliar, deep voice rolled throughout the immense room, slowing everything down to Fushimi's speed, bringing all motion to a halt. Fushimi knew he would see Adolf Karl Weisman walking into the room behind him if he turned, but he never had that chance. In the next moment, a black blur accompanied a frenzied scream.  
   
"YUKARI!!!"  
   
Charging right past Fushimi and Munakata, Yatogami Kurou flew at Yukari like a starved and desperate animal. Their swords struck with sparks, Yukari's expression lighting up with exhilaration to match the effect.  
   
Fushimi's world began to spin and clang as the two whirled around the ballroom in a dance both deadly and ethereal. Every blow traded added to the music but none seemed to strike home. The fight soon faded into the background as shock rose up once more and numbed Fushimi almost to the core—except for the depression in the pit of his belly, that roiling mass which made him feel physically ill.  
   
His eyes centered on Munakata again and he swallowed down bile, then jumped and almost threw up when a hand landed on his shoulder. It was meant to be warm and consoling but all it did was give him an excuse not to rush to Munakata's side and beg forgiveness through a choking flood of tears.  
   
"Captain!"   
   
From another entrance came a blue and gold blur, oblivious to the swords she dodged, dashing around the dueling pair. Halfway to Munakata, her line of sight shifted and she changed course, drawing her weapon of execution. Her vicious growl might have been Fushimi's name but her target was never in question.  
   
She never made it. A pinpoint shot ricocheted off her moving blade and threw her off balanced just as she drew close enough for Fushimi to coldly note the rage in her eyes. He felt no fear at her approach, nor relief as she stumbled and fell. Something stirred in him at the sound of the tart voice that came up on his left but he turned away, deciding that what went on there didn't concern him.  
   
"Over my dead body," Hirasaka announced, putting herself between Fushimi and the woman bent on his dispatch.  
   
"Stand down," Munakata gasped but Awashima either didn't hear him or didn't care, launching single-minded into battle. Gritting his teeth, Munakata turned his face to another approaching intruder. "Watch over her," he insisted.  
   
"Seri-chan can handle herself. You, on the other hand..."   
   
Even Kusanagi sounded shaken by the state of the fallen king.  
   
"I'm in no danger," Munakata insisted, looking up at Fushimi then as if in challenge to state otherwise.  
   
It was that look, and the kernel of uncertainty in it, that was Fushimi's undoing. He stumbled two steps closer and then fell to his knees, a curtain of tears blurring out all but a blue silhouette, no longer proud and perfect.  
   
"I'm sorry," he whispered, gasping even to get that much sound through his clotted windpipe. "I forgot you're human, too."  
   
"Funny. You never seem to let me forget it," Munakata joked.  
   
It was the terse agony coloring his voice that stole whatever resistance Fushimi had left. He doubled over his knees, his arms wrapped tight about his torso as he rocked and sobbed, and struggled to breathe.  
   
"Shhh. It's ok. It's going to be ok. We're going to leave it all behind, you see?" Munakata crooned, just out of reach for his straining arm to touch Fushimi. "I couldn't stay there. When I broke the rules you suffered, and when I followed them you suffered. When I tried to cope with my guilt and fears, you suffered. All that matters is that you don't suffer anymore—and that we're together, whatever that entails. That's why I arranged this getaway... but we seem to have gathered some stow-aways. I'm sorry. It wasn't supposed to be like this."  
   
"I have a responsibility," spoke Weisman. He knelt by Fushimi's side, weaving his fingers into dark, messy hair with a calming touch. "All of us who were chosen by the slate have suffered, but perhaps none more-so than Fushimi-kun. That's why I agreed to aid this great escape. Yet everyone here has a need to move on from a life of clans and kings. There is no coincidence. I'm here to make sure we all get the peace we deserve. It is over now."  
   
Fushimi didn't deserve such consolation. When he fell sideways into Weisman's lap and deft hands began to stroke his hair, he finally found an easing in the restriction of his lungs. He also knew he was unworthy of that small comfort. As his tears dried up, his eyelids remained parted and he stared unfocused at Munakata through dew-stained lenses.  
   
The captain—former?—was on his knees, clutching his ruined arm. His cheek and chin were beginning to darken and swell, his neck was stiff and held slightly off-kilter, implying injury around the muscles of throat and shoulder. His glasses were broken, only parts of the lenses still clinging to the frames. There were cuts about his eyes and across his nose. No wonder Awashima wanted blood.   
   
She wasn't the only one. Slowly, Fushimi had straightened and begun to rise, to separate himself from the solace he had no right to and to force himself to face what he had done to Munakata. He was halfway to his feet when one of the whirling, dancing pairs broke apart and a black bullet came streaking at him instead. He was still unstable and unable to react effectively. He stared at the oncoming hostile and swayed feebly, then fell in slow motion when a body surged up to supplant him.   
   
The sword that should have taken Fushimi's neck slowed, re-angled, and lodged itself in a limp log of flesh.  
   
When Fushimi's jarred senses reconvened, he saw Yukari a foot away, on his knees and wearing a look of terror. Or perhaps it was horror. His indecision in pursuing Yatogami with lethal intention might have cost Fushimi's life if Reisi hadn't put his own body in the way.  
   
One gloved hand rose to cover Yukari's mouth, rare jewels of emotion leaking down his cheeks, stricken pale but for blooming spots of color from his exertion. It was an odd time to entertain the notion of how exquisite he could be when he wasn't putting on airs...  
   
"Ladies! Enough!"  
   
Kusanagi's exasperated words finally brought a halt to the one ongoing commotion. The girls came to a grudging stop, glaring at each other and breathing hard. Eventually, they became aware of the tableu in the center of the room and when Kusanagi took each of their weapons, only Awashima put up a token resistance. When the situation sank in, she made to dash for her captain but Kusanagi grabbed her arm and held on, shaking his head in a silent reprimand.  
   
All the while, Yatogami Kurou looked distraught with confusion.  
   
"Reisi?" he whimpered, even as Kusanagi came between the women. "What are you doing?"  
   
"I'm sorry. I can't let you harm him," Munakata responded, just as quietly. "Let this be an end to it. The fight is over."  
   
With a grunt, he eased the blade from the dead-weight that was his arm.  
   
"They took your sword arm," Yatogami murmured, still looking dazed as his sword trailed to the floor, narrowly missing Fushimi's calf.  
   
Weisman hastily liberated the weapon from him but held it in an offensive grip, one eye on Yukari.  
   
Munakata sounded so tired and defeated when he replied. "I don't need it anymore. I don't want it. Captain Munakata Reisi died along with the Blue king. I was just too shocked by the one death to sense the other. I'm just a man now, and all I want is to live in peace... with the man I love."  
   
"Him."  
   
Yatogami's eyes slid to Fushimi—who glared right back up at him. He thought he would feel more spite, meeting the gaze of the one who had been with his lover behind his back—but he had little room for such inconsequential feelings now. That drama was over and done with. They had bigger issues right now.  
   
"Yes," Munakata affirmed, summoning the mutt's gaze back to his own. "And whoever else that means I must abide by." His glance at Yukari was remarkably only a touch sour. If his face hadn't the makings of a Picasso at the time, he might have seemed like his old self.  
   
"But Yukari..."  
   
Yatogami whirled to face his foster-sibling, his outrage almost comical. There were a thousand ways he could have finished that phrase but instead, he left it hanging, amusingly incapable of choosing one.  
   
"I'm not leaving his side," Yukari hissed, finding his feet. "Do you hear me, Saru? You won't just cast me off."  
   
"He has no such intention, I'm sure," Munakata drawled. "And I won't get in the way."  
   
Fushimi's eyes snapped to him then, and he must have uttered some kind of gasp or sound of surprise, for Munakata gathered a small smile for him. "He was afraid I would pry you away from him, steal the future you had together. I might have done the same."  
   
Fushimi pointlessly made to deny it but found he was too tired to bother. "So what now?" he asked, aiming for a light tone despite how heavily the question weighed on him. "We all kiss and make up and have a big boat party in the sky?"  
   
"We see to the injured first," declared Weisman. "Then we put to bed what conflicts we can and prepare to work on the rest. We'll have plenty of time to sort through it all before any choices need to be made. Time has its own agenda up here in the sky."  
   
Munakata stirred, looking about the room. "No, we have to find somewhere to set down Awashima and Kusanagi, at the least-"  
   
"You know, I don't think I'm going back. Judging by Seri-chan's face, she'd toss you overboard before leavin' you behind, so I may as well ride it out up here with my closest pals, too."  
   
"What about Homra?" Fushimi objected. Belatedly, he realized that meant he'd already accepted the proposed alteration of plans. He couldn't let them think it could be quite that easy to derail everything he had organized. "If Captain Munakata wants to run away from responsibility... whatever. Only three of us up here are fugitives on the run. None of you need to be-"  
   
"Ah, but we're all accomplices. We planted the get-away vehicle, arranged its accessibility, and aided in the escape. That makes each and every one of us wanted criminals."  
   
Weisman sounded so smug and amused that Fushimi was desperate for some kind of counter. "What about that pet pussy of yours?"  
   
Yatogami growled but Weisman cautioned him with a gesture. He had parted his lips to speak when Kusanagi butted in.  
   
"That's why you set up a spare room for her with Anna! You knew! You knew Seri would follow and that I'd be right behind her! You knew none of us would be going back!"  
   
Weisman nodded, wearing a sad, almost nostalgic smile. "Neko will be happy with Anna, and Homra will benefit from her presence, as will Hieda Tooru. She still belongs in the world. Her story isn't over."  
   
"And yours is?"   
   
It wasn't quite a rhetorical question but Weisman treated it as such, anyway. Fushimi looked around at each of the others in turn and saw the dawning realization in all of them. That was the common denominator among this motley crew. They all felt they were done with the world and the world was done with them. Yet, they were the exceptions to each other, one way or another.  
   
"Saru?"  
   
Yukari's question broke a long silence. The meaning was clear. He cast his lot with Fushimi and he was waiting on that vote. Meanwhile, Hirasaka shifted with interest, implying her own anticipation of the answer.  
   
"As long as I don't have to go back to any version of the past, I don't really care what the rest of you do," Fushimi mumbled, avoiding eye contact with anyone.  
   
"Well, that's settled," Munakata chirped, his tone a little too bright. "If we're done infighting, I wouldn't mind-"  
   
What he wouldn't mind went unsaid as he stumbled and almost collapsed. Yatogami caught him and Weisman supported him on his injured side.  
   
"Let's see to you," said the older man.  
   
"Captain-"  
   
"Reisi."  
   
"But captain-"  
   
"Please, Seri, let's skip the fuss."  
   
"Fine. R-Reisi. Can you feel your arm at all? Gods, look what they've done to you..."  
   
As the four of them shuffled to an exit, Kusanagi examined Hirasaka. Fushimi was proud to note she'd made it through a fight at a disadvantage to Awashima's sword but the reality was that she was looking worse for wear and her clothes were almost in tatters. The bartender took her under his wing, leading her off in the direction they decided the private quarters must be for some cleaning up and hopefully a robe or curtain or something that could pass as a change of clothes.   
   
That left Fushimi and Yukari, who had both watched the others and waited, dreading the moment they were left alone. They stared at each other.  
   
"You would have abandoned me eventually," Yukari said coldly, in defense of his actions. "I wasn't afraid, I was angry."  
   
"I let it go too far," Fushimi rasped, getting to his feet at last. "I don't know what all this means for me and him, Yukari... but the feud is over. I want your word you won't harm him again."  
   
"And you and I?"  
   
How could Fushimi resist that blushing, self-conscious, arm-hugging, genuine portrait of gentility? He closed the distance and pulled Yukari into his arms, pillowing his cheek against a satin fall of hair.  
   
"Who knows what the rules are anymore? I guess we make our own. Whatever happens with Reisi, you're mine—Hisa, too. This doesn't change us."  
   
"It will, but thank you for saying so." Yukari, taking advantage of the opportunity, let his hands slip to Fushimi's backside with a little squeeze. "Maybe I'll get my way, too," he said cryptically, disengaging from the embrace and walking off.  
   
Fushimi wondered if he was referring to something between them, to some fantasy involving Munakata... or to the presence of the only other person he seemed to truly care about: Yatogami Kurou.  
   
Why were all the men in Fushimi's life such dog-people? At least Hirasaka was the cat-loving type. He'd never have to worry about her striking up some fling with that insufferable mutt.  
   
He didn't really care to dwell on what other potential couplings might surface once grudges faded and scores were settled. Maybe they'd all wind up in a big, mile-high orgy of polyamory. What did it matter? For now, all he wanted was a bath and a place to sleep and call his own.  
   
He'd check up on Munakata once he got some rest and regained a little perspective.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think my plot note read something like "Fushimi and gang try to steal the airship, Munakata shows up, Fushimi comes to his senses and stays behind. Yukari and Hirasaka get away. F&M work out their problems. The end."
> 
> Or it would have if I'd bothered writing any such notes. Maybe then I wouldn't have wound up with this mess on my hands... ^_^;
> 
> Instead, I started writing the above scene... and then this happened, instead.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry Christmas. ^^

Munakata lay prone, feeling the subtle but unique drive of the airship. He had to focus to sense it, but it was there, a comforting whir that helped him to meditate when he needed a break from obsessing.

It was odd to think he'd once delegated only five minutes of thought per day to the contemplation of Fushimi Saruhiko. Now, he was a civilian and a fugitive, and he could to what he wanted and think on whatever his heart desired—so he devoted his mental faculties to Fushimi.

He entertained every word, action, and expression of their history, paying special attention to those of the previous night. He tried to guess and anticipate those to come. He analyzed his own emotions and tried to condition himself so he was ready when Fushimi finally came to see him.

He didn't. Yatogami was the first present when Munakata woke from a deep, healing sleep. It was awkward but he was grateful for the supportive presence.

Weisman visited next, relieving Kurou of his watch. Munakata felt inexplicably safe and relaxed in his presence, and slipped into sleep for an hour. Later, he was glad to see Awashima and Kusanagi—the former quiet, the latter talkative enough to compensate. When the bartender left the former co-workers alone for a little while, there was a lot more to be said; confessions, fears, and concerns, as well as admissions of relief and a few hopeful statements planning the day-to-day running of all lives onboard. At least Awashima was adapting well to her sudden change in circumstances. He'd worried that she would soon regret her choice to stay or try to convince him to change his mind. She clearly knew him well enough not to.

Even Hirasaka Douhan stopped by, apologising for her part in "kidnapping" Fushimi even while justifying the act. She warned Munakata of what she had revealed to Fushimi regarding her observational experience in his office. She even explained some of the arrangement that had developed between herself and Fushimi, and thus also Mishakuji. There were plenty of pert comments on all of Munakata's mistakes and how he might have done better and avoided this whole fiasco. She wasn't wrong, but it was irritating to be dictated to like so. Still, he grit his teeth and took the hits because Fushimi cared about this woman and—as he constantly reminded himself—Fushimi's life was in her debt.

The same night, Weisman came again, and Munakata found himself lulled to sleep before he could worry at Fushimi's marked absence. So it went on for a few days... until Mishakuji Yukari showed up with an e-letter and an agenda of his own.

"I'd call this more of a text message than a letter," Munakata complained of the curt correspondance.

I'm not avoiding you. I just need to get my head straight before we do this. - FS  
P.S. Press enter.

Sparing a calculating glance at Mishakuji, Munakata debated the wisdom of following that command. The tone was Fushimi alright, but tone could be mimicked... What harm could a terminal do, though? If it was a bomb, Mishakuji was close enough to be caught in the blast radius, too. What did a lovesick man have to lose? He pressed "Enter".

"That's the last of it. It's not enough for anything fancy, or any minor tricks, even, but it should suffice."

If Munakata hadn't felt the thrilling rush of aura in his system, he might have thought Mishakuji was speaking nonsense, but there it was. It was Green and felt unnatural in him but then it began to concentrate and dissipate, burning away into a sliver of Blue fire that licked at his wounds. The stiff ache in his neck went first, then the sense of wrongness in his facial structure—whatever cracks Mishakuji's boot had put into the bone. He waited, not daring to hope, but then there was warmth in his arm, tingling, and pain. It hurt more and more, but it was the most glorious pain because it was feeling—sensation where there had been none at all for days.

The last of the power that had been bestowed upon them all, purified from Green to Blue within him... it wasn't enough to complete the healing process but it gave him a chance to recover the use of his arm and that was enough.

"Thank you," he whispered, closing his eyes so that only two little tears could escape.

"Well, if we have to live together, I'd rather not see your dead arm hanging with such ugliness every day. It would ruin the view. Now let's be clear. When he inevitably comes crawling back to you, you should be grateful—enough to accept that I'm not going anywhere and neither is that tramp Hirasaka. We're a package deal."

Munakata peeled his eyelids apart and gazed upon the man who had caused him so much grief and kept him from his love in several ways, glad of the spare glasses he'd thought to bring with him because with them, he could see every tell of insecurity under the confident countenance. For whatever reason, Mishakuji Yukari needed Fushimi—desperately. Who was he to try and take away a man's lifeline?

"I already knew that," he said. "When I surrendered to you, I knew what I was signing up for... Well, I thought I did, anyway. The boot was a bit much."

"It was, wasn't it?"

Was that supposed to pass for an apology?

"But you should know this: whatever you are to him, whatever relationship you maintain... I intend to be his husband, if he'll have me."

There, he'd said it—and to the most notorious, gossiping queen on the ship. Let Fushimi get that straight before they next met.

"I admire you, you know," Mishakuji mused, tilting his head and studying the man before him. "Now, anyway. If you'd asked me before, I would have pitied a man who lived for duty while quite literally sacrificing his own happiness, but you've changed. It wouldn't have worked between you before... Fushimi's not cut out for that strict, rule-ridden life. Now... maybe you'll find a way to make it work."

"You may be right," Munakata conceded, though he didn't appreciate being dictated to by a man who knew nothing of sacrifice at all.

*

Fushimi had a lot to unravel before he was ready to face Munakata and put the past behind them. He'd considered simply picking up the name "Reisi" even in his head and just pretending they were both entirely different people from before, but that wouldn't solve anything. He was still who he was and Munakata was still the same man, just with sides he'd never seen before finally surfacing. If they loved each other, they loved all of who they each were and who they had been, or not at all.

Spending a great deal of time alone, Fushimi stared down at the world, going about its business; at whales cavorting above the ocean surface, at island farmers shirking their work to bask in the sun when their wives weren't looking... and at night he stared up at the stars when there were no city lights to admire. Strangely, he felt as though this were where he had always belonged, viewing the world but not caught up in its petty dramas and mysteries.

His two pretty dolls gave him time. They had ammends of their own to make with some of the other inhabitants of the ship but Yukari in particular didn't seem to be making much headway. Every so often, the ring of swords carried through the corridors of the ship and everybody who heard it sighed. Otherwise, Yukari and Hirasaka mostly just explored the various common rooms and made use of the billiard table and card decks in the parlor room... and the big comfy beds in their quarters, of course.

When he wasn't alone, Fushimi found himself most in the company of Kusanagi, of all people, and he was glad. That bartender etiquette meant Kusanagi didn't bother him until he was ready to talk and when he did, it was usually with some scrap of wisdom that helped Fushimi to solve a little more of his internal puzzle.

"We're all rootin' for ya, ya know," he said once, before taking a long drag on his cigarette and tipping a little ash overboard.

Thinking of the Black Dog and the sour expression he wore whenever they crossed paths, Fushimi snorted.

"I mean it. For one thing, if you two don't get back together, this whole fiasco will have been a bust. Did ya know the kids at Homra had a pool goin' before you took off ta join the Greens?"

"What?"

"How long it'd take for you an' Munakata to figure out what everyone else knew. Some of 'em gave up on it then but Anna just kept insistin' she hadn't lost yet. Most of us thought she was in denial. Then Yata got on her side and you came back and we all knew you wasn't lyin' 'bout bein' a spy. One day, she said ta me, 'I wish I could claim that pool money now... but I was wrong. They're jumping the gun.' The next day, you up an' disappeared."

"Anna said that. 'Jumping the gun,'" Fushimi deadpanned.

Kusanagi almost lost his cigarette for laughing. "That's what you gotta problem with? Kid, she's been around us big boys for too long. She says all kind'a things."

Staring determinedly out at the horizon, Fushimi brought up one of the more painful knots he'd been working around. "That was when we first slept together," he said. "I pushed him into it. He'd been holding back and delaying and I thought it was because he knew there was something wrong with me, so I let him believe he would lose me if he didn't take me to bed then and there."

"Was it everythin' ya hoped for?"

A rare smile perched upon Fushimi's lips. "And then some... but it felt wrong afterward. Maybe that was my guilt for forcing his hand."

"Can't have been all that much forcin' involved if ya ask me," Kusanagi drawled. Stamping out his cigarette, he leaned one arm on the railing and threw the other about Fushimi's shoulders. "Let me tell you a little secret, eh? Mikoto knew."

"Huh? Knew what?"

"He knew you were meant ta be together. The moment you left Homra and took up with the Blues, he knew you'd gone where ya belonged and were with exactly who you should be."

"Then why would he-"

"Well he wasn't exactly the fairy godmother type, ya know. He served himself when he wanted to... but he once told me he was a catalyst. I didn't really get it at the time but I think I do now. If they hadn't been together like they were, you never would'a recognized your own feelin's. You needed that inspiration."

Feeling oddly comfortable, Fushimi leaned his head into Kusanagi's shoulder, musing on what he'd just heard. It didn't soften his feelings toward Mikoto but it did hit a note of truth in him. Mikoto might have been onto something. Fushimi might never have understood his feelings for Munakata if it hadn't been for the jealousy that boiled his insides at that match.

"If Mikoto ever used a world like 'catalyst,' I'll eat my PDA," he muttered eventually.

"Yeah, that might'a been my word," Kusanagi confessed. "Think of it as a translation."

"You really miss him, don't you?"

"Enough to retire from Homra life in a luxurious sky boat an' play matchmaker."

"What are you gonna do with all the time on your hands when we do finally work things out?"

"Don't you worry about that. I got my work cut out for me! Besides, I have a list."

"Of what, exactly?"

"Broken an' unexplored relationships."

"What, you're gonna take up family counseling and fix Yukari and the mutt?"

"Then I'm gonna get you callin' 'The Mutt' by his name, but first I might take an easy win and convince Seri-chan to try somethin' new."

"...Like what, exactly?"

"A boat full of gay men and only you battin' for both teams? The last thing we need is Seri-chan goin' mad with sexual frustration. Now just think of how much fun those two blondes could have..."

"I'd rather not. It'd be like imagining my hot girlfriend using all her dirtiest moves on my prig sister."

Ruffling Fushimi's hair and pushing off the balcony railing, Kusanagi stuffed his hands in his pockets and headed inside. He stopped to throw over his shoulder one last piece of advice.

"We have all the time in the world up here to think and think some more, but you already know the result. Whatever's makin' you hesitate... maybe you could face it better together."

*

One thing Munakata would never know was if Fushimi would ever have resolved to search him out if they hadn't run into each other one exquisite dawn.

Having woken before the sun, Munakata deliberately took himself to the Eastern balcony to smoke and watch the sunrise. There, he found Fushimi leaning against a railing as if waiting to turn to stone with the first gleam of light. Munakata was instinctually aware that he had no idea of the time and that he'd been brooding through the night.

"Saruhiko."

The slow blink was one of resignation as Fushimi steeled himself, his shoulders stiffening, posture straightening.

"Reisi."

It was cold in the pre-dawn sky. In fact, it was generally cold up there in the thinner, quickly-flowing air. Fushimi wore only one of the long-sleeved gray woolen shirts that had been found in all of the cabins and no other layers.

Munakata could have spared his coat but he wasn't about to pass up a prime excuse. "You're freezing," he pointed out as he cradled Fushimi against his warmer body and covered those thin shoulders.

"Not as long as you're here," Fushimi breathed.

It was tempting to take for granted the easy way he leaned into the embrace. It was tempting to believe they could just move on from that moment with a fresh perspective as if they hadn't cut each other to the quick over and over again since they first began to fall in love.

That much, Munakata didn't doubt. Fushimi loved him, he was sure. The question was whether they could wholly and truly forgive each other and learn to be together without the secrets and the conditions.

"I was going to say I've missed this... but I don't think I've ever had the chance to hold you like this and simply enjoy the feel of you in my arms."

He had missed Fushimi, though—for longer than a few days. He'd been missing Fushimi since they staged the argument all those months ago and he let his beautiful, brilliant subordinate walk right into the enemy's grasp.

"I never gave you the chance," Fushimi said quietly. He was still, like a rabbit in a trap, instinctively afraid to move. "Reisi, I'm-"

"I already told you, love. I forgive you. I'll always forgive you."

All of the tension left Fushimi at once and he sagged, letting Munakata's arms be all that held him upright for a moment. Then he recovered and was more relaxed when he turned, leaning against the high railing and looking up into Munakata's eyes.

"I have a lot yet to forgive myself for. Like-"

"Please. We dont have to-"

"I can't live with any more secrets between us. If we're going to be together, I need you to know everything about me. Everything I've done... Yukari and Hirasaka, they've both accepted me as I am and unless you can do that-"

"I can."

"I won't know that for sure until you know everything."

"Then tell me."

Behind Fushimi, the sun began to creep up on the horizon, ray by glorious ray.

*

Part of Fushimi felt like a traitor because this was something he and Yukari shared, something only they could understand about each other. Yet, Yukari had desecrated himself by choice. Fushimi had not. By voicing his self-disgust out loud to Munakata, he was denouncing what he had done, and in doing so, denouncing Yukari's willing actions as well. Part of his abandon in running away had been in trying to accept that he had done what he had done because he himself was flawed and that it was OK to be so—that he was proud to be so.

Suddenly it hit him, like a punch to the gut that stole his breath. Yukari had been running like that for a long, long time. Whatever he had done in the past, he was so ashamed of it that he could only live with it as a self-proclaimed sociopath. Perhaps that long-seated trauma was part of the rift between Yukari and Yatogami Kurou.

Whatever it was... it wasn't Fushimi's burden to bear, but maybe if Munakata could accept what he was about to say, he could be there for Yukari in the same way. Or maybe he wasn't the right person for that job. Maybe his part to play was in bringing that person around...

"Saruhiko?"

Slowly, Fushimi looked up into Munakata's stunning, glacial eyes. He wasn't avoiding it anymore, he just needed to think things through this far, to understand himself by understanding Yukari, in order to be ready to say this.

"I seduced a dead man," he confessed.

For all his readiness, there was a block of ice in his throat. It was impossible to swallow.

"Nagare."

"Nagare."

"Tell me."

"To hack the JUNGLE mainframe, I needed more Green aura than I could get through missions and I needed it fast. I heard from... I learned that there was one way to do that."

"Go on."

"I thought about you," he said, not knowing until the words were out that he was going to say that much. "I thought of you and I made it look so convincing that I almost believed it myself when I got down on my knees and took him in my mouth and... It was disgusting. I feel sick just thinking about it. He was so cold and unresponsive... until he-"

"Oh, love..." Crushed against Munakata's chest, Fushimi held his breath for several seconds, then gasped with one heavy sob. "I think I understand at last. All this time, you've been punishing yourself because deep down you've hated me for what I made you do."

It took a few seconds for the words to penetrate the protective fog that kept his mind blank.

"I don't hate you!" He pulled away, slamming into the blessedly sturdy railing so he could see Munakata's face clearly and so that Munakata could see the conviction in his. "I don't!"

"No, but you did, at some point, and that's what you can't forgive—but I forgive it. I hate myself for it, too, but never you. You saved the world, Saruhiko. Nobody knew what it took from you to do so and you were persecuted for less, and now it's time for you to accept that you deserve to be happy."

Fushimi couldn't believe what he was hearing. All this time, he'd kept the awful truth trapped inside of him, terrified that it would break him if freed—that Munakata's judgment would break him. His former king didn't even dwell on his transgression for long enough to blink.

Just like that, he was already past Fushimi's actions and moving on to the emotional consequences, blaming himself for the pain Fushimi had been in all this time. The sad thing was... he was probably right about it all. Fushimi couldn't forgive himself because he hadn't been ready to forgive Munakata, and yet, suddenly he felt free. Could it be so simple as taking the fall for each other this way?

Belatedly, he realized that Munakata had been watching him, waiting for his mind to race through time and arrive back in the present. When their gazes locked, he finally spoke again. "Can I make you happy, Saruhiko? Is my love, unconditional and unfiltered, enough to do that?"

Fushimi almost nodded but a moment later he also had to resist the urge to shake his head. He knew right away that it wasn't that easy. If he had learned anything about himself in the last few minutes, it was that he was too complicated for one man to cope with.

"I love you too much sometimes," he breathed, meaning the words as an apology of sorts. "There are things I can't be with you. There are sides to me I just can't-"

"I know, love. I won't keep you all to myself, as much as I would like to—but I lied when I said my love was unconditional. There's one condition. Just one."

"What is it?"

"Marry me. I can live with sharing you, as long as I can be your one and only husband."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And a happy New Year.


End file.
